Aside: I don't understand how Justice doesn't know precisely what's missing. I have a lot of trouble even imagining, let alone believing, that the docs in question aren't indexed, cataloged, and accounted for at every step of their existence.
Theoretically, all classified documents
are indexed, cataloged, and accounted for at every step of their existence. But as a twenty-one-year-old Navy Ensign I learned, what is supposed to happen and what does happen are not always the same thing, even when handled by people who supposedly know better. As the ship's “Classified Material Control Officer”, I underwent weeks of training on the intricacies of the “chain of control” and made daily, weekly, and monthly inventories of every classified document under my control, only to have the executive officer remove a highly classified document from my custody without a cover sheet, authorization, or signature and “store” it in an unlocked desk drawer in the captain's unsecured cabin. When the
error was discovered and rectified, the exec's abject apology to myself and the entire ship's crew was epic.
Given descriptions of the Oval Office early in Trump's term, the loss of the trail of accountability was inevitable. If classified documents, were handled in such a cavalier manner by any DoD employee, in or out of uniform and regardless of rank, they would be grateful to get off with
only 20 years in prison. Neither ignorance nor stupidity is acceptable as an excuse, and there was plenty of both to go around in the Oval Office during Bonespur's administration.
