About that letter stolen from Trump’s desk so he wouldn’t sign it …
The Woodward book excerpts told the story about how Gary Cohn stole a letter from Trump’s desk so he wouldn’t screw up a deal we had with South Korea. That deal involved both trade and military co-operation.
Needless to say, Trump said the whole thing was fake news. I hesitate to say Trump lied because it’s possible that he just forgot the whole incident, just as Cohn hoped he would when he stole the letter.
But Woodward and his publisher had a little surprise for Trump, something not mentioned in the excerpts – it seems that Cohn kept the purloined letter, and it is reproduced in the book.
As I pointed out with the Omarosa book, this is precisely the right way to play the hand. It’s the same logic you apply when you have pocket aces: don’t make it obvious and drive out the other bettors. The right way to play this particular hand is to make a claim without revealing that you have undeniable proof for the claim, then wait for Trump or his spokespeople to deny it, then expose them as liars. That way you get a triple win:
= your point is reinforced with media coverage
= you expose a liar
= everyone else who might have denied your claims will see that they can’t because you’ve shown that you have the proof to back up what you say, and they don’t want to get exposed as liars
Excellent subtle Poe reference.
Prior to this, I think the only way I’ve ever used “purloin” is to set a humorous tone, the way I might use “consarn it,” but the seldom-used word is amazingly appropriate in this case, because it implies that the theft was stealthy and a breach of trust.
What is unusual about Trump’s letter, in contrast to Poe’s, is that the thief did not need to leave a substitute behind to conceal his machinations (as both the original thief and Dupin did). He simply appropriated the letter, and Trump apparently forgot about it. How did Cohn know that such a scheme would really work? You’d think that Trump would eventually ask, “Whatever happened to that Korea letter I wanted to sign?”
What do you expect from a lit major?
Won’t the White House / Trump simply claim that whatever document Woodward has is a forgery? Is there some way for Woodward to prove it is genuine?