Why Did Trump Hide Classified Documents?

Answering Mass Media Questions About Trump's Motivations (Vol. 3; Issue 23)

Late last night, I felt surprised while watching major news network anchors (save Fox News’ Russian-, Chinese- or North Korean-style propagandists) question why Donald Trump gluttonously hoarded, hid, and evaded discovery of top-secret, classified documents. These various broadcast journalists seemed genuinely mystified by his behavior. In confirmation, a headline in this morning’s New York Times reads: Unanswered in Indictment Details on Trump’s Hoarding Documents: Why?

An even basic understanding of how persons with narcissistic personality disorders (NPD) view the world definitively answers the question. I shall provide a few excerpts from the 49-page indictment to validate how Trump personally, and in a conspiracy involving his valet, Waltine Nauta, collected and stashed documents in Mar-a-Lago. Next, I explain the basic tenets of narcissism as understood in psychiatric diagnostic systems like the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10). Finally, I explain the psychoanalytic meaning of Trump’s covetous desire.

In the way of a preview, Trump is not stupid. He did not act out of ignorance. Trump clearly understood the meaning of the documents, why multiple federal agencies wanted them back, and how his failing to release them not only violated the law, but placed the nation’s national security at risk. In brief, Trump’s grandiose self-image— combined with an insatiable need for approval—blinded his judgment. This is neither a condemnation or an endorsement. NPD cannot be used in a Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity (NGRI) defense. It is, instead, simply a clear and coherent explanation for many journalists’ puzzlement regarding Trump’s actions.

Readers need no special legal training to understand the indictment, dated June 8, 2023. It begins by noting that the United States Department of Justice is leveling a number of charges against Donald J. Trump and his valet, Waltine Nauta.

Just a few of the most relevant portions of the indictment provide the background for understanding why NPD explains Trump’s motives.

On page two, the indictment describes the highly secretive, sensitive nature of the information Trump grasped onto for dear life:

The classified documents TRUMP stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.

The indictment continues:

In July 2021, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, during an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, a publisher, and two members of his staff, none of whom possessed a security clearance, TRUMP showed and described a “plan of attack” that TRUMP said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense and a senior military official. TRUMP told the individuals that the plan was “highly confidential” and “secret.” TRUMP also said, “as president I could have declassified it,” and, “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

Page six of the indictment notes that:

Classified information related to intelligence sources, methods, and analytical processes was designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information (“SCI”). SCI was to be processed, stored, used, or discussed in an accredited Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (“SCIF”), and only individuals with the appropriate security clearance and additional SCI permissions were authorized to have access to such national security information.

In other words, these were materials only to be reviewed in a lead-lined room, without access to cell phones or cameras, by specifically authorized individuals. The indictment delineates public statements Trump made revealing his clear understanding of what is meant by “classified information.” Page nine reads, in part:

On August 18, 2016, TRUMP stated, “In my administration I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.” On September 6, 2016, TRUMP stated, “We also need to fight this battle by collecting intelligence and then protecting, protecting our classified secrets. . . . We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.”

The indictment provides multiple other examples, mostly from other Trump public statements, validating he knew what classified or secret documents mean. Regarding Trump personally knowing what he was doing was wrong, and conspiring with his valet to do it, the indictment proceeds, on page 10, to note:

In January 2021, as he was preparing to leave the White House, TRUMP and his White House staff, including NAUTA, packed items, including some of TRUMP’s boxes. TRUMP was personally involved in this process. TRUMP caused his boxes, containing hundreds of classified documents, to be transported from the White House to The Mar-a-Lago Club. From January through March 15, 2021, some of TRUMP’s boxes were stored in The Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom, in which events and gatherings took place.

In May 2021, Trump directed staff to clean out a storage room to hold his boxes. The indictment continues, on page 12:

The hallway leading to the Storage Room could be reached from multiple outside entrances, including one accessible from The Mar-a-Lago Club pool patio through a doorway that was often kept open. The Storage Room was near the liquor supply closet, linen room, lock shop, and various other rooms.

Rather disturbingly, pages 13-14 of the indictment read:

On December 7, 2021, NAUTA found several of TRUMP’s boxes fallen and their contents spilled onto the floor of the Storage Room, including a document marked “SECRET//REL 14 TO USA, FVEY,” which denoted that the information in the document was releasable only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. NAUTA texted Trump Employee 2, “I opened the door and found this…” NAUTA also attached two photographs he took of the spill. Trump Employee 2 replied, “Oh no oh no,” and “I’m sorry Potus had my phone.”

Additionally establishing Trump’s awareness of his own actions while, at the same time, validating how he shared sensitive, secret information, the indictment documents, on page 15:

Two members of TRUMP’s staff also attended [an] interview [on July 21, 2021] which was recorded with TRUMP’s knowledge and consent. Before the interview, the media had published reports that, at the end of TRUMP’s term as president, a senior military official purportedly feared that TRUMP might order an attack on Country A and that Senior Military Official advised TRUMP against doing so.

The next page of the indictment reads, in part, like a movie script:

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]

TRUMP: Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and—by the way. Isn’t that incredible?

STAFFER: Yeah.

TRUMP: I was just thinking, because we were talking about it. And you know, he said, “he wanted to attack [Country A], and what . . .”

STAFFER: You did.

TRUMP: This was done by the military and given to me. Uh, I think we can probably, right?

STAFFER: I don’t know, we’ll, we’ll have to see. Yeah, we’ll have to try to—

TRUMP: Declassify it.

STAFFER: —figure out a—yeah.

TRUMP: See as president I could have declassified it.

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter]

TRUMP: Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.

STAFFER: Yeah. [Laughter] Now we have a problem.

TRUMP: Isn’t that interesting?

At the time of this exchange, the writer, the publisher, and TRUMP’s two staff members did not have security clearances or any need-to-know any classified information about a plan of attack on Country A.

On page 16, the indictment returns to Trump’s earlier public statements. It intends to show, again, how Trump personally understood what is meant by classified information, specifically about military operations. It reads:

On February 16, 2017, four years before TRUMP’s disclosures of classified information set forth above, TRUMP said at a press conference: “The first thing I thought of when I heard about it is, how does the press get this information that’s classified? How do they do it? You know why? Because it’s an illegal process, and the press should be ashamed of themselves.”

The indictment provides still more details of how, where, and when documents were hidden and prevented from discovery. It continues:

TRUMP, in sum and substance, made the following statements, among others, as memorialized by Trump Attorney 1: a. “I don’t want anybody looking, I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes.” b. “Well what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” c. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here? d. Well look isn’t it better if there are no documents?”

Enough background, let’s proceed with a literal psychoanalysis. I consider individuals with NPD similar to those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). The term, borderline, originates in efforts to distinguish the realm between assessing consensual “reality” and psychosis (meaning loss of touch with consensual reality). By analogy, NPDs have a software upgrade in the form of a grandiose self-image. Whereas persons with BPD are prone to literal fragmentation, those with NPD hold extreme beliefs in them being special, rare, and unique. It holds them together. The grandiosity is like a form of psychophysiological glue. They are still prone to the typical, primitive splitting and projective identification defenses (see earlier newsletters for more information). We all know this about Trump. He begins by idealizing others (military generals, attorneys, staff members, etc.), then he devalues them, and finally he ejects them from his life.

In terms of the phenomenology of NPD, these individuals display a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance. Their excessive needs for admiration, which sometimes rise to a delusional level, are accompanied by a diminished ability for empathy. They are, obviously, interpersonally exploitative. Making a precise diagnosis of NPD requires the presence of at least five of these nine criteria:

1. A grandiose sense of self-importance.

2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Believing that they are ‘special’ and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

4. Requiring excessive admiration.

5. A sense of entitlement (unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with their expectations).

6. Being interpersonally exploitative.

7. Lacking empathy.

8. Often feeling envious of others or believing that others are envious of them.

9. Showing arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

From my perspective as a psychoanalytically trained psychologist and an American citizen, I see, clearly, 8 of the 9 possible behavioral patterns. I have not observed any overt envy. He certainly speaks of others being envious of him. And, it is quite possible that those orbiting closer to Trump’s planet, like his children, observe personal envious feelings. He’s never publicly displayed them, save perhaps that time in January 2018 when Trump used Kim Jong-un's New Year's Day speech as the basis for referring to him as “little rocket man”, saying the “nuclear button” in Washington is “much bigger and more powerful” than Kim's—"and my button works!”

In any event, 8 out of 9 possible criteria make for an unusual degree of diagnostic clarity.

Now, at last, let’s return to the question guiding this week’s newsletter. NPD explains, rather comprehensively, the excerpts noted above as well as the pattern of behavior we’ve all witnessed over the past few years.

Side point:

It is a diagnostically tricky problem to distinguish NPD from psychopaths (criminal minds). Kernberg (1984, 2000), who calls individuals like Trump malignant narcissists, makes the distinction as follows: The person with NPD has at least some trace of a conscience. They can feel fear and, sometimes, guilt. You might have to dig for these emotions, but they are there. Psychopaths, in contrast, feel no emotion (Hare, 1999; Paul, 2019). Shaking your hand and killing you feels the same to them. No difference in emotional reaction whatsoever. They are extremely scary individuals. In a lecture I heard in the 1990s, San Diego psychologist and psychopath-expert J. Reid Meloy stated that, if you’re kidnapped by a person you know to be a psychopath and they are driving you on the freeway at 80 mph, it is safer for you to jump out of the car than remain in it.*

Bringing this already-too-lengthy missive to an ending, consider, if you will, just a careful analysis of the last paragraph I excerpted from the indictment. Trump overtly says he doesn’t want to share the information he has (because he’s specially entitled to it), and he suggests not responding to the requests because of his propensity to exploit others. He is simply not subject to the laws governing we ordinary, mundane human beings.

The earlier excerpts establish how Trump’s need for admiration, to be seen by others as a “great man,” overshadowed all other elements of his personality—intelligence, judgment, concern for the safety and welfare of his fellow Americans, etc. It was just too great a temptation. Trump behaved like an impulsive, barely-recovered alcoholic touring a whisky distillery in Scotland. It would require much closer inspection than any of us has as observers, but statements like the following make me think of Trump as mostly an insecure-little-boy-trapped-inside-a-need-to-be-special adult:

TRUMP: This is secret information. Look, look at this. You attack, and—by the way. Isn’t that incredible?

Incredible indeed.

*In fairness, you might also want to jump out of the car if Trump were in it, but for different self-survival reasons.

References

Hare, R.D. (1999). Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. New York: Guilford.

Kernberg, O.F. (1984). Severe personality disorders: psychotherapeutic strategies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Kernberg, O.F. (2000). Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism. New York: Aronson.

Meloy, J. R. (1995). Personal communication.

Paul, B. (2019). Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-269754-7. OCLC 1091161786.