Why would Trump take top-secret documents to Mar a Lago?

Here's a version of the "He did it because he could" theory:

Senior intelligence officials realized early on that President Donald Trump wasn’t going to read even short written summaries of his regular intelligence briefings. So the CIA officers who prepared the briefings made sure they came to the Oval Office laden with striking images, pared-down charts and slick graphics designed to grab the president’s fleeting interest, several officials familiar with the briefings told NBC News.

“To secure his attention, you had to use images and catchy headlines, even better if they had his name in them,” said Doug London, a former CIA officer who helped assemble the briefing material.

On Aug. 30, 2019, top spies learned the dangers of that approach. What unfolded that day became an infamous moment in the Trump presidency — one that former intelligence officials say perfectly illustrated his approach to dealing with state secrets. A former senior intelligence official with firsthand knowledge told NBC News that Trump did indeed tweet a highly classified image taken by a secret spy satellite, as many experts suspected at the time. And in doing so, the official and others said, Trump gave U.S. adversaries keen insights into the U.S. capabilities to spy from above.

“The president tweeted a picture of an Iranian missile launch site that showed a failed ICBM test launch that everybody acknowledged was a highly classified picture taken from space,” former national security adviser John Bolton, who was in Poland when it happened, told NBC News Monday. “He tweeted it out, and that of course declassified it by definition, but also showed what could happen when such a picture, even on a Twitter attachment, was then able to be analyzed by foreign intelligence services.”

Bolton and others familiar with it say the episode is emblematic of a mindset in which Trump or people close to him thought it was permissible to bring and store what the FBI says are highly classified documents to his compound in Mar-a-Lago.

“He spent no time understanding what made something a secret and what we protected,” a second former senior intelligence official said.

The former senior official directly familiar with the matter explained to NBC News that the president’s intelligence briefing that day included a photo from one of the America’s premier spy satellites — an image with resolution far superior to anything on the commercial market. The photo showed the aftermath of a catastrophic failure of an Iranian rocket launch.

“We had this image of the Iranian missile blown up, and it was exquisite intelligence, and he didn’t even wait,” the former official said. “As soon as we showed him, he said, ‘Hey, I’m tweeting this.’”

The official said CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire tried to talk Trump out of doing it, noting that the U.S. spent billions of dollars developing capabilities to capture images from space, and told Trump, “You can’t do this. If you put this out, they’re going understand what our capability is.”

But the former official said Trump was unmoved.

“He said, 'Look, I’m the president, I can declassify anything,'” the official said.

In the last few days, two more explanations have emerged for Donald ("Caligula") Trump's removal of top-secret material from the White House:

1. The NY Times reports that he may have removed the material to use it in seeking vengeance against his perceived enemies. Now that's 100% on-point for Trump: vengeance, payback, revenge, reprisal, retribution... very Trumpian.

2. Congressman Mike Turner(R - Ohio) recently attempted to defend Trump by explaining that Trump would use the material to write his memoir. That's quite a stretch, considering that we are dealing with a guy who doesn't read, cannot write, and delivers word-salad when he opens his mouth. He'd use a ghost-writer of course, and he would verbally grant the ghost-writer "super secret, double-secret clearance" to view the documents...

No, there is still no explanation that makes sense. I can only modify a line uttered by Ned Stark, from "Game of Thrones", when attempting to explain the inexplicable to his young son:
"A madman thinks what a madman thinks."

(Ned said "sees" instead of "thinks", but it still applies)

Hey, I think I know why Trump stole those documents! It took a while, but I think I finally solved the mystery.

This is an old thread and I don't want to repeat it. I'd like to summarize the four main theories as to why Trump stole those documents... and then I will offer a new one. The first four are:
1. To sell the information (perhaps to Russia or Saudi Arabia)
2. To use the info to blackmail or extort a rival
3. To show off the documents to visitors simply to impress them
4. He stole the material because that’s what he does, he’s like a magpie.

I was never comfortable with any of those explanations. I kept asking “Why did he do it?”

I have a new theory. Perhaps other people have similar theories, but if so I have not encountered them. My theory goes like this:

- Trump stole the White House call logs (or something similar). That’s what he really wants. I suspect the call logs could prove his guilt, and he knows it.

- Trump stole the other documents to hide the real treasure. Stealing the other material provides multiple advantages:

1. The stolen call logs (or other incriminating evidence) may remain hidden while authorities attempt to compile a list of missing material.

2. Trump will keep “winning” as long as the lawyers, pundits, talking heads and common citizens bicker over the legal details. The public is talking about nuclear secrets, and the intelligence community is concerned about techniques & resources. Perhaps those are red herrings... if Trump can destroy the incriminating evidence (or simply withhold it long enough), he may escape conviction.... and perhaps he may never even be brought to trial.

3. Stealing the call logs alone would indicate “consciousness of guilt.” By stealing other material along with the incriminating evidence, the “consciousness of guilt” factor would be mitigated or even eliminated.

So, that’s my theory as to why Trump stole those classified documents... or at least, that's what I think today. I’ve been wrong before, and I may change my mind later as new information becomes available...