Since the FBI seized hundreds of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, the biggest question on everyone’s mind — besides what sort of intel was actually in them — is what exactly Donald Trump planned to do with them. Defenders have come up with all sorts of reasons why the former president might hold on to top-secret documents that put the world in danger by being moved from the security of the White House, including for research to write his memoirs. If that were true, then what the hell would Trump need with “intelligence” on Emmanuel Macron’s sex life?
As Rolling Stone reports, item 1a on the list of documents and information seized from Mar-a-Lago is “info re: President of France.” While that’s as detailed as the official FBI list gets, Trump’s longtime obsession with all things Macron is hardly a secret to those closest to him. As Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng write for Rolling Stone:
Trump has bragged to some of his closest associates — both during and after his time in the White House — that he knew illicit details about the love life of French President Emmanuel Macron, two people with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. And the former president even claimed that he learned about some of this dirt through “intelligence” he had seen or been briefed on, these sources say.
While there’s no confirmation that the material seized from the president’s golf club/home is the same intel he has boasted about seeing in the past, or whether the material has anything to do with Macron’s personal life at all, the mere existence of it — and that it has been in Trump’s nubby little hands — has French officials, including Macron, worried. According to Rolling Stone:
[T]he mere revelation of its existence triggered a trans-Atlantic freakout, according to two other sources familiar with the situation. And Trump’s prior talk about Macron’s allegedly “naughty” ways that “[not] very many people know” only intensified those concerns. Both French and U.S. officials worked to figure out precisely what Trump had on Macron and France’s government, and if any of it was sensitive in nature, the sources said. The officials in both nations wanted to know if this discovery signified some kind of national-security breach — or if it amounted to a frivolous, but stolen, keepsake.
According to Trump’s staffers, including former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, the former president was known to love gossip — both receiving it and sharing it with whoever was listening. So it would make sense if the documents he had were salacious in nature.
Still, a French embassy spokesperson told Rolling Stone that they had not asked for any details on the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Unlike Trump when he was in office, some presidents have real work to do.
(Via Rolling Stone)