Donald Trump's evolving tales, alibis, attacks, and blame detail his panic over FBI's documents search

Former President Donald Trump possessed a lot of concerning government information in his home that he shouldn't have had. What has become obvious over the weekend is that Trump's behavior appears defensive enough to indicate he understands what he did was serious.

At first, he claimed he did nothing wrong and was working with the FBI and that they went rogue. The story then changed as he accused the FBI of planting evidence. The FBI indicated that the information that was found was top secret, the kind of information that isn't even available to the everyday FBI agent. Merrick Garland wasn't in Mar-a-Lago himself with the information, nor was an upper-level government official who would have had access to the information.

He then attacked the FBI, saying that he wasn't in Florida to keep an eye on them during the execution of the search warrant. When it was revealed his lawyers were there, their stories changed that they suddenly were in the parking lot and not watching what the FBI agents did. Americans then found out that Trump was watching the whole search on a closed circuit camera network.

Once it was reported that Trump was in possession of nuclear weapons information the conversation around the incident became even more serious and Trump's alibi changed again. The Atomic Energy Act prevents a president from unilaterally declassifying nuclear information, as historian Alex Wellerstein explained on Friday.

So Trump offered yet another excuse: the nuclear information he took from the government was already public anyway. The information that was taken by the FBI this week isn't even available to the public yet, and Trump hasn't described what it was. So neither the level of seriousness nor the National Archives' classification is yet known. If it was information that could have been found on the internet, it begs the question of why Trump felt the need to steal it when he could go home and print it.

The defense evolved another time when Trump and his allies perpetuated the false understanding that a president can simply wave a magic wand over documents and they're suddenly declassified. There's a process for declassification that would involve others and likely a paper trail. If Trump wanted to declassify nuclear secrets, someone else would absolutely have been involved. If the documents could be found on the internet, why would Trump need to declassify them at all?

While it isn't likely that Trump would pack his own boxes, it has already been made clear that an informant revealed to the FBI that Trump had the documents and was destroying them or there was a concern he would destroy them. Things got even worse over the weekend when Trump started to look at other options for who he could blame.

Some have speculated that Jared Kushner would have a reason to strike back at Trump so he could break off further from the ex-president. While Kushner has been among those Trump is allegedly blaming, Trump is now also blaming his wife.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen agreed that Trump is panicking, evident in the fact that he doesn't even trust his own partner. It could just as easily have been a Secret Service agent, who is a member of law enforcement obligated to tell the FBI about possible crimes they've observed. It could also have been a National Archives staffer who saw the classified information when picking up the 15 boxes of documents Trump took.

By Sunday, Trump's justification changed again, and he began claiming "attorney/client privilege."

Regardless of the pretext, Trump appears so panicked he is pointing to his own family members, changing his stories, and trotting out allies on cable news, trying to change the story.