One of the craziest stories emerging from the pre-release reports on the upcoming Bob Woodward book on the Trump White House "FEAR" is the idea that aides *steal* documents from Trump's desk to prevent "catastrophes."
Think about that - aides are actively hiding documents from Donald Trump because they cannot trust his judgment or mental stability to make decisions that are logical, rational or in the best interests of America.
Esquire reports that Woodward wrote that Gary Cohn “stole a letter off Trump’s desk” that Trump was supposed to sign that would "formally withdraw the the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing."
Process that. Trump wanted to withdraw from a trade deal and the didn't even notice that the letter was gone. He DID NOT NOTICE. I mean, what? WHAT???
CNN has received a copy of the document that was supposedly retrieved from Donald Trump's desk, as described in a very dramatic opening scene of the book, FEAR.
JAMIE GANGEL; This is the very dramatic opening scene of the book where he sees this document and he says, according to Woodward, that he was appalled and got to save the country and he swipes it. Not the only time. Yesterday the President said no documents were stolen off of his desk. We have the document. This is a copy of the document that is in Bob Woodward's book. It is a draft letter that according to Woodward's reporting that Gary Cohn and staff secretary Rob Porter, former staff secretary, didn't know how it got there. It had not gotten through the proper channels. And it is from President Trump and his U.S. trade representative, and it is addressed to the President of South Korea. it is dated September 5th, 2017.
BLITZER: What does it say?
GANGEL: You want me to read the whole thing?
BLITZER: Give us a sense.
(LETTER) Dear sirs, the United States/Korea free trade agreement in its current form is not in the overall best interests of the United States' economy, thus in accordance with Article 24.5 of the Agreement, the United States hereby provides notice that it wishes to terminate the Agreement.
GANGEL: And it goes on. But that was what they were so concerned about, what Gary Cohn, what Reince Priebus, what Rob Porter were so concerned about, that the President did not understand that by terminating the Agreement, it was a danger to economic security, it was a danger to national security, it was a danger to global security.
When the only thing between us and national chaos erupting is a judgment call made by aides to remove documents from Donald Trump's desk, we are in deep, deep trouble.
