The problem of an investigation into the handling of classified information

 There is an old aphorism about injecting sunlight into yourself whenever there's a pandemic because generally speaking, enough UV radiation will kill damn-near anything.  Also, remember to stare directly at the eclipse.  Trust me.  It'll be fine.  Anyway, a functioning democracy requires information.  Secrecy is one end of the spectrum, and the other end is a din from which no one can sort truth from fiction amid so many lies and bullshit that the truth is a mere breath amid a symphonic crescendo.

Without Christopher Walken demanding more cowbell, democracy dies amid the din.

That is not to say that secrecy is always wrong.  National secrets exist for a reason.  Do I want to know what the government has on "UFOs?"  Yeah.  I am highly, highly, highly skeptical that there are actual, fuckin' aliens, but dude.  Science!  I want to know.  Then, there's the matter of spies, clandestine operations and such.  Things that can be abused, but can also keep us safe.  Yet they cannot keep us safe if made public.

OK, so you're President.  What secret documents do you steal?  Me?  I go with the alien shit.  Yeah, it won't really be aliens, but if you're going to steal documents, steal something fun.  Hypothetically.  Kids, don't steal.  Unless it's cool, alien shit.  Then, you weigh the risks and rewards, and yeah, you'll probably get caught and go to prison, and that'd suck, but if that doesn't happen, then... score!  You scored alien shit!  Like, imagine walking into that warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, and just treating it like a shopping spree!

Fuck off, there were three movies.  No aliens involved.  Goddamnit.

I'm getting way off track here, and if I'm not careful, this post will turn into a rant on sequels and remakes, and I've done those before.  So let's return to the topic of purposive national secrets.  Those that are kept secret because the government cannot fulfill a vital purpose if revealed.

What kind of documents did Trump steal?  We don't know.

And we cannot know.  That's the point.

The full affidavit was never going to be released, and the redacted version was never going to tell us precisely what Trump stole.  He took national defense documents, and withheld them in the face of repeated efforts to recover them.  Many of the documents were classified up to the highest level.  That means we cannot know.

And here is the test of Trump's lie that he declassified everything.

Tell us.  If they are declassified, then Trump can tell us exactly what those documents are, because they are declassified.  So do it.

Yeah... that ain't gonna happen.  And so we remain in the dark, as we shall.  As we must, creating the basic problem.

Given the level of classification of what Trump stole and withheld, we are not allowed to know.  For good reason.  Or at least, we must assume good reason, even though it is possible that someone just classified his lunch menu for the hell of it, but that's not likely.  Maybe someone classified materials that should be made public, but then... Trump could have declassified it and made it public.  All things considered, the best assumption is that a significant set of documents should remain secret.

But here is what follows.  If you begin with any level of distrust, that continued secrecy merely reinforces the distrust.

There are two ways one could approach the matter with distrust.  One could be a Trump cultist, in which case there is really no point thinking about such a person.  The other way is if someone is a sort of sunlight enthusiast, rational skeptic who just doesn't trust the Feds, either from a libertarian perspective, or from an old fashioned contrarian perspective, like what the ACLU was before they went woke.  There are a lot of possibilities, so what about such a skeptic?

If the documents cannot be revealed, the only way to assuage the concerns of the non-Trumpist skeptic would be to indict, try and convict Trump.  As I have stated, this is the first time I have seen any real legal danger for Trump, and while I am still highly uncertain what will happen to him, "uncertain" is quite different from "absolutely, 100% certain that he faces zero consequences."  If Garland charges him, and gets a conviction, that is the kind of thing that would sway a rational skeptic, and of course, there is no reaching a Trumpist.

Yet this is the problem with an investigation into matters that we cannot know, because the whole point is that we are not supposed to know them.  So we probably never will.

The Killer Shrews, "We Know Your Secrets," from their self-titled album.