This just in

 As Trump would say, "Wow!"  Now he's claiming the FBI "stole" his three passports (one expired, one possibly diplomatic) during the search a week ago.  I've watched enough Law & Order to know what that means:  FLIGHT RISK.  And that's when the arraignment judge (probably not played by Fran Lebowitz) has granted bail.  Of course, we only have Trump's worthless word for this -- they could be in his underwear drawer with the porn.  No worries:  I'm sure Florida is issuing passports now and Governissimo DeSantis is eager for a chance to help...get Trump out of the country.  Dosvedanya, Mr. President!

Millions of people heard Richard Nixon tell David Frost, "When the president does it, that means it is not illegal."  Not as many read his "walk-back," as we say now, a few days later in the Washington Star:  "First, I do not believe and would not argue that a President is above the law.  Of course he is not...Precedents over the years have sanctioned some degree of latitude in the use by presidents of emergency situations...My insistence that this latitude does not place the president above the law is not a semantic quibble.  To me, it is a vital distinction which goes to the heart of our constitutional system."  It's probably as close as Nixon could come to acknowledging the scope of the actions which led to his resignation.  Curiosity about the contents of Larry O'Brien's safe did not represent an "emergency situation," much less sanction the subsequent cover-up.  The op-ed was meant to remove some of the tarnish from his reputation.  

Nevertheless, I think even Nixon would cringe to see the current state of our constitutional system and the number of people who cite his first statement and ignore the second, now in the context of Trump "declassifying" highly sensitive documents by showing them to his idiot son-on-law (who had fewer grounds for top-secret clearance than Millie Bush) nor by declaring, "I hereby declassify you" while reaching for a chicken wing.  On Fox News they're describing the swag as "his property" under the doctrine of "finders keepers."  

 CNN tried to turn down the heat with this timeline showing how patiently and politely the Justice Department waited for the docs to be returned:

But the Trumplogists were not impressed and continued to beat their chests and bellow.  Mike Turner is furious that the FBI never took documents from Hillary Clinton's house because he thinks emails exist on paper.  Sebastian Gorka told Steve Bannon all about his contacts in the FBI who assured him that they planted bugs in Trumpingham Palace, and then babbled about hobbits.  "This is the collapse of the Republic!" he asserted, which I assumed was the right's goal all along.  Also FBI = Gestapo, and he appears to have a problem with that, too.  I'm getting mixed signals, Seb.  

"I've never seen anything like this.  It is a very dangerous time for our country," Trump told Fox News Digital, whatever that is.  "I will do whatever I can to help the country."  Everything except stop giving interviews, knock off the incendiary Socialisms (or whatever they're called at Ministry of Truth Social), pretend innocence when his unredacted search warrant on Breitbart results in death threats for the judge and the agents, tell the red hat rioters to stay home, quit calling it a "raid" and basically, finally, just shut up.  Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray didn't start the fire.

Trumpworld's idea of lowering the temperature is to deploy idiots like Michael Waltz (R-FL) who told Fox that on reflection, the Boss decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton "despite the blatant, blatant destruction of thousands and thousands of documents" (oh, no, the dreaded Double-Blatant!).  "'You know what, let's move on, let's move forward,' but they are just incapable of doing it when it comes to him."  A little treason, a little espionage, some people can't let go.  Also, wasn't he beaming as recently as a month ago while the Mole People chanted, "Lock her up!"?  Do they know he lied to them?  This is how you tell them, Waltz?  Hasn't America suffered enough?  Bygones, etc.

Time is an illusion, Trumptime doubly so, as Ford Prefect might say.  No election is over until Trump or one of his minions has won.  No lie is ever debunked because Trump will never admit he lied.  No Benghazi ever ends.  And loyal apparatchik Kash Patel seems to think Trump still has power over classified documents.  There were just so many of them that Trump got bored with de-classifying them because they ate up time he wanted to spend watching television and marking the White House with his trademark ketchup splatters.  But Patel has pledged to "continue that work at the National Archives."  I've got a Ulysses Grant that says they won't let him in the door unless he joins the tour.  Especially since Patel himself is under investigation for disclosing classified information.

And finally:

Olivia Troye was homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to Mike Pence.  She told Business Insider that she once found classified documents in the ladies room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.  She was a little surprised that political appointees -- "the best people" -- were careless in handling such things.  I guess I'm harder to surprise.