How Many State Secrets Is Trump Going to Sell to Pay Off His Debts?

Despite the fact that Donald Trump and his allies have cranked their delusions re: a second term to an 11, the most likely scenario on January 20, 2021, is that Joe Biden is inaugurated the next president of the United States. At that point, Trump will just be another civilian. But the difference between him and your average guy on the street is that he, by his own admission, is in debt for $421 million. And also, that he’s been privy to four years of highly classified information, the kind assorted parties would be thrilled to get their hands on, and which a known con man who thinks he’s been cheated would probably have little issue parting with for the right price.

Of course, that might sound crazy and delusional if not for the fact that Trump has spent nearly his entire term in office making the solid case that he’s a national security risk, a threat that would seemingly become more acute once he leaves office. Per the Washington Post:

As president, Donald Trump selectively revealed highly classified information to attack his adversaries, gain political advantage, and to impress or intimidate foreign governments, in some cases jeopardizing U.S. intelligence capabilities. As an ex-president, there’s every reason to worry he will do the same, thus posing a unique national security dilemma for the Biden administration, current and former officials and analysts said.… Not only does Trump have a history of disclosures, he checks the boxes of a classic counterintelligence risk: He is deeply in debt and angry at the U.S. government, particularly what he describes as the “deep state” conspiracy that he believes tried to stop him from winning the White House in 2016 and what he falsely claims is an illegal effort to rob him of reelection. 

“Anyone who is disgruntled, dissatisfied, or aggrieved is a risk of disclosing classified information, whether as a current or former officeholder. Trump certainly fits that profile,” David Priess, a former CIA officer and author of The President’s Book of Secrets, an accounting of the top secret intelligence briefings that presidents receive while in office, told the Post. While experts noted to the Post that Trump reportedly ignored most of his intelligence briefings and has never demonstrated he actually has any idea how the national security apparatus works—“The only saving grace here is that he hasn’t been paying attention,” said Jack Goldsmith, who ran the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel under George W. Bush—some details presumably penetrated the thick layer of concrete surrounding his brain.

The chances are low that Trump knows the fine details of intelligence, such as the name of a spy or where an intelligence agency may have planted a surveillance device. But he almost certainly knows significant facts about the process of gathering intelligence that would be valuable to adversaries. “The president is going to run into and possibly absorb a lot of the capacity and capabilities that you have in intelligence,” said John Fitzpatrick, a former intelligence officer and expert on the security systems used to protect classified information, including after a president leaves office. The kinds of information Trump is likely to know, Fitzpatrick said, include special military capabilities, details about cyber weapons and espionage, the kinds of satellites the United States uses, and the parameters of any covert actions that, as president, only Trump had the power to authorize.