I’m not the only person asking “why.”

Why did Donald Trump pretty much shoot himself in the foot, not just by not returning classified documents as asked by the DOJ, but by bragging about his possession of classified documents while knowing he was being recorded?

The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, documented Trump’s historic seemingly uncontrollable show-off impulses.

And, as you’d expect, on air, there’s been plenty of armchair diagnosis on TV about narcissistic personality disorders as well as speculation about leverage Trump could, possibly, have wanted to exercise with foreign states with whom he wants to do business deals: The leading candidate being Saudi Arabia.

But I think there’s more to it.

In his mind, the best defense is the best offense. And, given his background in the unregulated often opaque and ruthless world of New York real estate, it might appear that he assumes (not necessarily wrongly) that everyone else is playing dirty, so he needs to play dirtier to gain the advantage.

Readers of my 2014 book The Liar’s Ball may recall a fascinating episode in which Abe Wallach, Trump’s former executive vice president for acquisitions and finance, gave me this first person account of what happened on a long-haul flight. (He told me he never told Trump any of this).

Read on at Vicky Ward Investigates