The device that has kept Trump from becoming even more notorious than he has is the non-disclosure agreement. If it were possible to identify the many times that Trump has used non-disclosure agreements to conceal his many dishonesties, infidelities, and outright lies, we would find that Trump’s life has been papered with non-disclosure agreements.

Trump’s more recent abuse of office has renewed and strengthened this pattern, for surely “executive privilege,” as applied by Trump to everyone who has entered the White House, is the biggest and best non-disclosure agreement that anyone can imagine. What Stormy Daniels dared to do, Hope Hicks has not.

But non-disclosure seems to apply only to Trump’s sins, not to national security. When the NY Times learned of the secret attacks on Russia’s electronic grid, they made every effort to be certain that security would not be compromised by publication of the story. The Times was told, in effect, “no problem.” This suggests that the Trump administration is far more zealous about concealing Trump’s misdeeds that maintaining national security.