From Alex Shephard in the New Republic, summing up the Malignant Loser's reasons for illegally hoarding and handling classified documents:
"Trump is hanging onto this information not just as a revenge plot but as a kind of prop: There’s an idea that he needs this information to prove that actually, he’s right about everything and the world is out to get him. His own aide, he seems to fear, would have believed that he wanted to attack Iran if not for the documents in his hand. He needs these documents to exonerate himself from the slings and arrows the world hurls at him—even though by doing so he is literally and openly committing a federal crime.
It goes beyond that, however. The documents are there as vestiges of his presidency: They’re accouterments that prove that he was once a powerful man who could change the fate of the world with a word or the push of a button—or that he could simply push a button and get a Diet Coke, something he now has to shout for. Trump has always been incredibly sensitive to the appearance of power and prestige, usually in gaudy and self-defeating ways. He likes to look and seem important and influential, even if most of his adult life was spent as a laughingstock. The documents for him are 'cool' because they prove that he really was important. Now he’s bragging about it to anyone who will listen—even an aide who’s paid to follow him around." (our emphasis)
His extreme narcissism, lawlessness and sense of entitlement made this situation inevitable, and his fanatic cult enabled his reckless criminality by blindly supporting him.
Shephard's entire article is well worth reading.
