TRUMP'S MOST TERRIFYING WORDS

Donald Trump was on Fox last night explaining the process of declassifying government documents. Unfortunately, he found it necessary to use those terrifying words: "as I understand it."

And there's his problem in a nutshell: He doesn't understand how things work.

He thinks all he has to do is imagine that the documents are declassified for them to actually be declassified. According to him, he used this magical-thinking process on all the documents in question.

Which means, as he understands things, all is well and the government can just get the hell off his back.

Two problems with that: The documents have not actually been declassified. And even if they were, they still don't belong to him. They belong to the National Archives.

Now, maybe if a document is really, truly declassified, Trump would be free to make a copy of it. But in no way does the ownership of the original document shift from the government to him. He's still holding onto property legally owned by others.

But let's say for the moment he's right, and all the documents were magically declassified. Let's say they even had their ownership transferred from the Real World to Bizarro Trump World. Why on earth did he give up so many of those documents in January and June?

That doesn't make sense. Trump doesn't voluntarily give up anything.

Now the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has simplified the Special Master's job quite a bit. Classified material is back to being considered classified, and the Master won't have to look at it because by definition none of it belongs to Trump.

What about other stuff? As I understand it, when the FBI locates items listed on a search warrant in a particular drawer, the entire contents of that drawer are seized to show the context of how the listed item was found. All that stuff (minus the listed item) will, in due course, be returned. You don't even have to ask.

My guess is that if Donald Trump gets any of that stuff back, he will declare victory and claim all his incendiary statements have been vindicated.

But after that may follow the indictment, is there is one.

Sending Trump to prison is problematical. He may end up like Rudolf Hess, Hitler's formal deputy, who was the sole inmate of Spandau Prison for more than twenty years. Trump may serve his time in a prison built for one, run by the Secret Service.

It remains to be seen what will be left of the Trump Organization after the fraud suit filed in New York state is finally adjudicated.

And what if the IRS gets involved in a criminal prosecution?

Trump cronies all claim this is politically motivated. Will that reasoning also be applied to any jury findings?

The problem with MAGA-ridden Republicans is that they don't recognize an off-ramp when one shows up. But I suppose it's possible they're stuck way over on the wrong side of the freeway, and getting to that off-ramp would involve a great deal of dramatic carnage.

(Have I been watching too many dash-cam car-crash videos on YouTube?)