The Indictment, The Nausea, & Our National Security Nightmare
Donald J. Trump was arraigned Tuesday on a federal indictment including charges of espionage. By now, every pundit in the country has written or yapped about this.
Our post is different because: 1) We’ve got this nonprofit here set up to help Americans navigate this new intensity while also bringing tools for increased political pressure to address the trouble… as the entire US Republican establishment is backing Trump’s dangerous, traitorous behavior; and 2) We’ve got a personal story about why this unfolding national security nightmare is nauseating, and how that could be true for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
First — Read the Indictment
Here’s the indictment (in PDF). We recommend reading the indictment.
It’s 49 pages, with a lot of white space. It’s an easy read; assuming you can read or print a PDF somewhere. Worth reading! Much better than Cats! Also, there are spectacularly disturbing photos… all of which are included at the end of this post as they don’t convey in the PDF. Plus, the end of the indictment itself lists the potential years of sentencing so that’s nice. Plus plus, if you read it you can totally one-up your friends and family in indictment-related conversations because you’ll know some of the specific alarming details of the greatest national security violation in US history.
A Personal Story & Our US National Security Nightmare Now
It's been days since the big Trump federal indictment was released. It's been hours since the arraignment. I've posted memes. I've collected yours.
I haven't written a damn thing about the indictment yet, though, until now. Because the whole thing makes me nauseous. Like genuinely physically thoroughly nauseous.
Here's why...
I lived my life carefully if not wildly so that I could get a security clearance at some point.
It seemed like it was relevant when I was in high school and I'm not sure why. Same for college.
It seemed like it would probably be relevant when I was gallivanting around the country as a park ranger and wildland firefighter also. As crazy as my life was, I always tried to keep it in check enough that I could make it through the security clearance process if I needed to.
Why? I have no idea. Just something I felt compelled to do.
After 9/11, the pieces came together. At the time, I was already working in the biggest, most integrated wildland firefighting machine in the entire world in southern California.
It wasn't a leap in the months after 9/11 to get involved in changing how our country was supposed to be doing incident management for everything from everyday incidents to major catastrophes as a result. I got involved.
I got so involved that eventually I moved to DC to get in on the new national direction.
I make long-term plans and I reach them... so not long after I got to DC I found my way into the brand-new US Department of Homeland Security... and then into the specific program that I was aiming for that ran how we handle incident management in the US.
🚧 But wait! 🚧
If you're going to work in DC in those kinds of jobs in a post-9/11 environment, you need a clearance. You need a very, very high security clearance.
I did what could only be described as a freaking ton of paperwork... tracking down every single place I'd ever lived as a park ranger... and enough contacts in every place to validate that I had actually existed in said place for said brief period in time.
This was no small feat.
It included some serious creativity because one time I lived in fire engines in three states over 4 months, and one time on a set of islands over a different 4 months.
I'd lived inside national parks which don't have convenient addresses.
I'd lived in a rural town that didn't have - and I'm not kidding - street addresses. I have no earthly idea how that town made it work.
My background check team did not appreciate this kind of absurd living.
In my extremely unsettling security interview about all of this craziness, I tried to gauge what my level of background check intensity was compared to others. I was of course terrified that I wouldn't pass. It takes months. Oh — also you lose your job if you don't get a clearance and you took a job that requires one. So there's that.
When I tried to gauge how intense my background check had been compared to others, I was told that it wasn't the worst ever. People with military deployments had somewhat more challenging ones sometimes. Only maybe with a whole lot *less* moves on them. So that says something.
It did not reassure me, but it did sound like people with some seriously complicated backgrounds did make it through the process eventually.
I think my Top Secret clearance came through about 10 months after I'd submitted it.
I don't remember at which point the terrifying interviews (there were 2!!) occurred in the process there.
I do remember that my vehicle was stolen in the middle of the process and that a hammer and all of my old wildland firefighting multi-tools covered in my fingerprints were pilfered in the process. I was terrified that I'd be charged with someone else's murder because I'd been fingerprinted for the background check... and now my old fire tools were loose in the DC metro area crime network. Yikes.
And that was all just for the Top Secret clearance.
To get a Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) clearance for the fancy DHS critical infrastructure job my second year in DC, I had to do even more tons of security paperwork. Oh and this occurred in the middle of the Hurricane Katrina response. So that was extra nice.
Meanwhile, the US Department of the Interior (DOI) where I was working tried to make the case that they were busy dealing with the catastrophe so I couldn't transfer just yet to the US Department of Homeland Security that was - you know - the primary lead on the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe response. Additional nice stuff. Oh — and it of course involved more urgent security paperwork arguing everybody's criticalities.
Then I maintained those clearances and worked in classified stuff just over a full decade.
I'll do you one better.
I managed to whistleblow the federal program I'd moved to DC to help support for two solid years and still managed to renew all of those clearances including - yes indeed - a whole new boatload of paperwork even while I was whistleblowing.
Yes that's right.
Because I play a long game. Because I play my cards right. Because I follow the rules. Because I live carefully even if a little wildly. And because my intentions are in the right place.
Because I'm loyal to this damn country.
Because I take my oaths seriously.
Let me tell you something.
It makes me sick to my very core to see the extremely casual, reckless, dangerous, flagrantly irresponsible, selfish, manipulative, sneaky, scheming, traitorous treatment of super highly classified materials by one Donald John Trump, twice-impeached now twice-indicted former president of these United States.
It makes me sick to my very core to see the entire US Republican political establishment back up his flagrant selfish dangerous recklessness.
It is a danger to these United States.
It is a danger to our continued democracy.
It is a danger to our military and our entire national security establishment.
It is a danger to our federal government.
It is a danger to our institutions.
It is a danger to our allies.
It is a danger to our future intelligence and national security operations.
If I feel this way after working in national security for just over a decade... how do hundreds of thousands of other people who have been through the clearance process and who have honored it and who have lived up to their oaths over decades feel?
How do people feel who have sacrificed; living the national security lifestyle of secret-keeping and solidarity and quiet and careful friendships over an entire lifetime?
How do people feel who have given up lives of wild abandon or even of casual friendships or even of being authentic?
How much have people given up?
Some have given up everything.
How many lives were lost creating this entire national security mechanism that Donald Trump is actively undermining along with the entire United States Republican party political establishment?
And here we are all watching this wildly disrespectful selfish cult leader with his dozens of boxes of our United States secrets squirrel them away... and declare arrogantly, casually, and wrongly that he had every right to keep and to go through those damn boxes on his own time well after he left the presidency. He even said it again Tuesday night!
The indictment shows that there was a freaking photocopier in a storage room with the boxes for crying out loud. A PHOTOCOPIER.
Did you know that photocopiers in Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) are specially engineered to not keep the images of the documents they photocopy so as not to spread highly classified information accidentally? That's definitely not the case for the one in the storeroom photo at Mar-A-Lago.
Did you know that the paper shredders in SCIFs shred papers into teeny teeny teeny tiny pieces that no sane or rational counterintelligence agency would be inspired to try and reassemble?
So much care and concern has gone into protecting this kind of material. To even get into a SCIF takes the personal clearance that takes months or years + the identify verification + tons of government forms + navigating all kinds of physical security measures like guns and guards and gates. It’s intimidating and it’s scary and it’s meant to be.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump had these boxes of super highly sensitive information sitting around or being casually carried around or being driven around by some guys he knew.
In the 18 months that Donald John Trump had these documents before the federal government finally executed one search warrant on one of his properties… who in the world saw these highly, highly classified documents?
How many enterprising foreign intelligence agencies conducted operations gathering priceless intel on his sprawling security violation?
And we don't know how much more vulnerability is out there with this guy.
Are there more documents squirreled away in any other hidey-holes, bathrooms, closets, storerooms, limos, airplanes, or golf courses of Donald Trump's?
They could be anywhere. The man is devious and dangerous, and had lots of time to plot and scheme.
Also it seems safe to assume that NONE of the people Donald John Trump showed these records to went through any kind of a clearance process.
Are they even our allies? Why would we think they would be? The man has an absolute fascination bordering on obsession with the leaders of our worst enemy countries.
What could go wrong?
I suspect quite a bit of this material could be out on the internet somewhere. The fact that it could be is also a risk because now which governments are going to claim they have leaked information from Donald Trump? Falsified claims are dangerous and now a realistic risk.
Perhaps worse... maybe these highly sensitive materials are just in the possession of our enemies. Or maybe those enemies will just say they have them for various nefarious reasons as noted above. How would we know if what an enemy would claim they had would be real or not?
How would we even know which enemies Trump gave or sold materials to, if he did?
For all of the thorough documentation in the indictment, what isn't in there speaks volumes too.
Do we even know what's gone?
Does someone have any earthly idea what this man took? For real? Overall?
What kind of a wild kingdom was going on in the Trump White House?
Does someone in the United States government know the scale and scope of damage our former president is doing and has done to these United States?
Because of the highly sensitive nature of the materials a US president has access to, this could be the most dangerous security leak in US history. Yet the media has been treating it casually the entire time.
And now the entire Republican political establishment is acting like it's perfectly fine. Biggest security violation in the history of the United States and they're endorsing it.
And so no... I still haven't written yet about the content of the indictment itself. Still working on getting past the nausea.
How many hundreds of thousands of us are there?
And what do we do now?
I'll tell you what we do.
We make sure that Americans understand what national security is, and how the entire Republican political establishment is undermining it and endangering this entire country, everything it protects, everyone it protects, and everything it stands for.
American democracy protects Americans, and it protects millions of other humans worldwide.
If the US democracy falls, millions of our own citizens and millions around the world lose the protection that the most powerful government in the world brings to us all.
Our superpower kick-ass military might will not protect us from an internal threat.
We have to do that ourselves.
Time to get in the game. Time to take it up a level.
We need to stop acting like everything is normal and start doing political pressure differently.
We have some ideas about that. Maybe you do, too. Let's get together.
It's only the world order that's at stake.
Stick around. Join us. And let's make some shift happen.
Shift the Country National Security Zoom Calls
Perspective, Q&A, and informal discussion about national security and what we can do about it in light of the Trump federal indictment and Republican support for his action:
Thursday, June 15, evening — Let’s Talk National Security.
Sunday, June 18, afternoon/evening — Let’s Talk National Security.
Indictment Photos
The PDF of the indictment itself has the photos in black-and-white, but we’ve collected the indictment photos for you here. Many of these have already made their way around the internet in the form of viral memes. No doubt more have meme-futures. Here are the photos: