For all of the detailed proof specified by the 38-count indictment accusing former President Donald J. Trump of holding onto tons of of labeled paperwork after which obstructing the federal government’s efforts to retrieve them, one thriller stays: Why did he take them and combat so laborious to maintain them?

Mr. Trump’s motive for having 1000’s of presidential information — together with greater than 300 labeled paperwork — at Mar-a-Lago, his mixture residence and members-only membership in Palm Beach, Fla., was not addressed immediately within the 49-page indictment filed on Thursday in Miami. The charging doc didn’t set up that Mr. Trump had a broader objective past merely possessing the fabric.

While discovering a motive might definitely be helpful for prosecutors ought to Mr. Trump find yourself at trial, it will not be vital in proving the authorized parts of the case towards him. Nonetheless, why Mr. Trump held onto an intensive assortment of extremely confidential paperwork after which, prosecutors say, schemed to keep away from returning them stays an unanswered query — even after almost 15 months of investigation by the Justice Department.

The indictment did provide some hints.

It described how Mr. Trump, who views most all the pieces when it comes to leverage and sometimes focuses on payback towards perceived enemies, brandished a labeled “plan of attack” towards Iran at a gathering in July 2021 at Bedminster, his golf membership in New Jersey, as a solution to rebut what he perceived to be criticism from Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a recording of the assembly, Mr. Trump will be heard rustling paper and telling these round him that the doc in query proved that he was proper in his dispute with General Milley.

“This totally wins my case, you know,” he stated.

In different situations within the indictment, an aide to Mr. Trump describes the supplies he was carting round with him within the packing containers as “his papers,” one thing he did whereas he was president, suggesting he was not able to let go of the perks of holding the best workplace within the nation.

In an identical style, the indictment depicts Mr. Trump as attempting to cease a lawyer he employed to assist him search Mar-a-Lago for any labeled materials nonetheless in his possession from really going via the information he stored on the property.

“I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” Mr. Trump is quoted as saying, expressing a form of private possession over the fabric. “I really don’t.”

His sense of private possession was so pervasive that his aides, in textual content messages included within the indictment, had been plainly anxious about shifting them too distant from him.

Several former aides and advisers to Mr. Trump have lengthy made the argument that he merely stored the delicate information as a result of he noticed them as “mine,” and since he likes buying trophies that he can exhibit, no matter type these trophies could take.

When he was a businessman exhibiting off as a playboy in Manhattan, Mr. Trump tried to be seen with engaging girls. He purchased the Plaza Hotel and referred to as it a “toy” for his spouse on the time, Ivana.

He collected high-end trinkets to brandish for guests to his Twenty sixth-floor workplace, just like the basketball star Shaquille O’Neal’s large sneaker, which lay with a pile of different gadgets.

He handled the nation’s secrets and techniques equally whereas in workplace. Mr. Trump shared highly classified intelligence throughout an Oval Office assembly in 2017 with the Russian ambassador and overseas minister. He posted a classified photo on Twitter in 2019 of a failed Iranian rocket launch, telling senior aides who wished to take away the classification markings that that was the “sexy part.”

During their investigation of the case, prosecutors working for the particular counsel Jack Smith took steps that indicated they had been attempting to find a motive.

For occasion, they subpoenaed details about enterprise dealings that Mr. Trump’s firm, the Trump Organization, had with seven overseas nations from the time his presidency started in 2017, showing to attempt to decide whether or not any of the paperwork might have been used to assist his ventures overseas. But there was no reference within the indictment to Mr. Trump utilizing the paperwork for enterprise offers.

Late final yr, as public studies made clear that prosecutors believed Mr. Trump nonetheless had labeled materials in his possession, certainly one of Mr. Trump’s friends-turned-adversaries, Chris Christie, the previous governor of New Jersey, provided a easy clarification.

“I think it’s much more likely they’re a trophy that he walks around and says, look, I’ve got this,” Mr. Christie, who’s now campaigning for president towards Mr. Trump within the Republican main, told ABC News. “I’ve got this classified document or that, because remember something: He can’t believe he’s not president.”

Mr. Christie went on, “He can’t believe he still doesn’t get these documents, and he needs to display to everybody down at Mar-a-Lago or up in Bedminster during the summer he still has some of those trappings.”

He recommended it was why Mr. Trump had a copy of the Oval Office Resolute Desk put into his workplace at Mar-a-Lago.

“All the rest of those things are things that are assuaging, you know, his disappointment and his disbelief that he’s not the president anymore,” he stated.