An editorial published Saturday in Missouri's St. Louis Post-Dispatch called out former President Donald Trump's well-documented distaste for reading, posing the question: "Why would an ex-president who doesn't read want boxes of documents at his home?"
The Post-Dispatch referenced a series of stunning reports published over the past week detailing the FBI's seizure of nearly "two-dozen boxes of documents that belonged to the federal government and reportedly contained top secret material." Those documents were found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate last Monday.
Noting the former president's proclivity towards boredom, general lack of interest in reading and abject love of TV, the editorial board writes:
"Against that backdrop, the existence of perhaps 25 boxes full of government documents, reportedly including top secret material, in a Mar-a-Lago basement seems particularly curious. Why would Trump want them at his private residence when he didn't like to read and had no legal right to possess them?"
Referencing Trump's relentless 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton over her private email sever, the editorial board insists, "Trump certainly had to grasp how serious it is to unlawfully retain classified documents"
"And after the FBI collected 15 boxes full of documents at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year, Trump must have had a good reason to hide the existence of another 10 boxes," the editorial continues. "It was only after an informant tipped off the FBI to the additional boxes that a federal judge authorized last week's search."
The editorial board goes on to slam Republicans who are "apoplectic" over the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago but mum on Trump's decision to take documents that "were never his."
"Regardless of the justification, the documents were never his, and Republicans who are apoplectic over the FBI search should first be asking why it was ever O.K. for him to break the law in the first place," the board writes.
