The classified documents TRUMP stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.
The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods. . . .
And you missed it. Are you the greatest failure in the history of spying, or what? Are you kicking yourself up and down the street? What are your bosses going to say? How will you defend yourself? Will, "Who could ever imagine that the President of the United States would be such a doofus?" be a good enough excuse?
Of course maybe you did find it. In that case, did you tell your bosses that all you had to do was walk into the bathroom at Mar a Lago and open a box? Or did you invent a crazy story about your great inside sources and all the spycraft you had to use to contact them and arrange drops and all that spy stuff? I mean, who ever got promoted for walking into a bathroom and opening a box?
Even, like, in the bathroom. Which has a chandelier, for some reason.
ReplyDeleteFor the same reason that someone will pay $5,000 for a steak covered in $50 worth of gold leaf.
Some people have zero sense or taste, but think they can compensate by burning money in a pit.
As for the matter of spying, my understanding has long been that overall it's like searching for needles in haystacks - to my knowledge a lot of the biggest spying successes have basically boiled down to dumb luck. You need to be in the right place at the right time, and you also need to be paying close enough attention to not miss something (but not too close, of course, lest you focus on the wrong thing).
ReplyDeleteSpying seems to mostly involve a lot of wasted time spent looking for leads that don't actually exist, as well as following other leads that don't actually go anywhere. You clandestinely look through a hundred haystacks in secret, and find absolutely nothing - but you still keep doing it because if you don't, then you'll inevitably miss the one haystack that actually has a needle in it. Assuming it even exists. Or maybe it doesn't, but instead you find something different - a matchstick, perhaps.
Is it worth it? Probably about as often as panning for gold is worth it. Or maybe even less so. And yet, we continue to spend the time, money, and resources on it, so who can really say.
Honestly, I think any spy who "missed" Trump having nuclear secrets basically unguarded is going to be annoyed, but at the end of the day knows that you have to look through the most promising haystacks first, because there's only so many hours in the day. Although in this case, it's more like finding a needle stuck into the handle of the pitchfork. It's obvious once you see it there, but why in the world would it be there in the first place?
@John
ReplyDeleteI love it!
I guess a serious question would be, how do service staff at Mar-a-Lago get vetted? Surely the Cubans, at least, have a couple of people embedded. What would the Chinese give Havana for a couple of those Minox shots? (Remember the Minox?)
For sure there were spies at Mar-a-Lago since 2016. At least If I was in charge a rising power who wants to rule the World.
ReplyDelete