Why Trump Really May Be Headed to Jail, At Last

I became a Twitter celebrity of sorts by sharing a spy’s prediction of Trump’s imprisonment – here’s why it may be finally becoming reality

Some six years ago, just a few weeks into Donald J. Trump’s presidency, I set the Internet on fire by tweeting what an old Intelligence Community friend, a senior spy, told me about our new president, specifically that “He,” meaning Trump, “will die in jail.” That was a comment between spook pals, not deep intelligence analysis, but given my friend’s long experience with the Beltway espionage bureaucracy including Russian matters, I took it seriously.

So did many others, judging from the reactions that followed. Twitter has never let me forget that comment. It’s been frequently misconstrued as my prediction when I was quoting an IC source possessing inside, i.e., classified, information. Moreover, over six years later, Trump remains a free man, as boisterous as ever (even if no longer active on Twitter himself), his several legal problems dogging his presidency and post-presidency, notwithstanding.

That said, the specter of jail is now looming over the former president, at long last. Trump’s greatest legal risk is found in his seemingly intentional mishandling of classified materials at his Mar-a-Lago property, where he has resided since leaving the White House. This newsletter has reported deeply on this scandal since it broke last August conveying its seriousness both legally and intelligence-wise. The former president faces several legal donnybrooks, including the fraud-related felony indictments announced last month by the Manhattan district attorney, plus potential charges in Georgia stemming from the 2020 election imbroglio, perhaps in a few weeks.

However, the Mar-a-Lago matter is the standout in a crowded legal field because it’s a national security case, the sort of thing that the Justice Department frowns upon even in former presidents, what normies go to jail for (even if VIPs really never do). Then there’s the matter of Trump’s guilt, which seems to be on overt display, given his refusal to hand over highly classified records to the National Archives and Records Administration, per federal law. Within weeks of the FBI’s seizure of those classified papers, Top Secret Umbra predicted that the former president would eventually be indicted by DoJ in the Mar-a-Lago case, given Trump’s rather obvious guilt in the matter.

Even Republican lawyers known to be friendly to MAGA assessed that Trump was in serious legal jeopardy. As longtime Fox News legal pundit Andrew Napolitano opined concisely, in accessible language for laypeople:

Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government’s application for a search warrant at the home of former President Donald Trump reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes: Removing and concealing national defense information (NDI), giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it, and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it.

It is irrelevant if the documents were declassified, as the feds will charge crimes that do not require proof of classification. They told the federal judge who signed the search warrant that Mr. Trump still had NDI in his home. It appears they were correct.

Under the law, it doesn’t matter if the documents on which NDI is contained are classified or not, as it is simply and always criminal to have NDI in a non-federal facility, to have those without security clearances move it from one place to another, and to keep it from the feds when they are seeking it. Stated differently, the absence of classification — for whatever reason — is not a defense to the charges that are likely to be filed against Mr. Trump.

In one easy sentence: He done it. As this newsletter predicted last September: