Former President Donald Trump revealed on the evening of June 8 that he has been indicted over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. Though the indictment will remain sealed until Trump’s June 13 court appearance in Miami, it reportedly consists of seven charges, including false statements, conspiracy to obstruct, and at least one related to the Espionage Act. Trump is the only US president to be charged for such a thing even though, according to the National Archives and Records Administration, every president at least as far back as Ronald Reagan has similarly mishandled government paperwork. President Joe Biden has faced no such indictment – or any consequence at all – for storing classified documents in various non-government locations, including his unsecured garage, from his time in the Senate and as vice president.
A Trump Indictment Likely to Help More Than Hurt
On the Truth Social platform, Trump, in his characteristically loud fashion, wrote: “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING.” That was before he announced the indictment, when it was a looming threat rather than a present reality. One doesn’t have to like the former president to see that he has a point. Then again, he is also the only president to have been impeached for a telephone conversation with a foreign leader, so none of this should come as any surprise.
In truth, laws regarding the storage, handling, and transmission of classified materials are so broad that, in all likelihood, few senior government officials would honestly be able to claim they have never violated the statutes.
Donald Trump (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Trump’s attorneys will reportedly lean on a case involving tapes of recorded conversations retained by Bill Clinton from when he was president. As Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton explained to investigative journalist John Solomon, the National Archives brushed off Judicial Watch’s questions about that case. An attorney for the Archives said, according to Fitton, that “if the documents are in the former president’s hands, they are presumptively personal – we presume they’re personal.” That inquiry into the Clinton tapes concluded that “a president had broad and mostly unchallengeable power to determine which documents from his presidency can be kept personally … “
The Trump indictment seems to throw certain federal law into a precariously opaque area. The question is not so much whether the former president broke the law but why he would be charged when none of his predecessors have even been formally investigated for such transgressions. The indictment, some might argue, is nothing more than an act of pure spite; it will ultimately serve only to give the man campaigning for another White House term more credibility when he claims he is the victim of political persecution by a now distinctly left-leaning establishment.
Prosecutors earlier told Trump he was the target of a criminal investigation and that an indictment was “imminent.” The 45th president’s defense team provided the Department of Justice with evidence of alleged witness tampering on the part of one of the prosecutors, yet the DOJ has declined to delay charging Trump until that evidence has been investigated. According to a report from Just the News, the allegations involve the apparent attempt by a “senior prosecutor” to “influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness’ lawyer.”
Speaking on June 7 at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, the former president fired back at the Justice Department:
“They are using this, and trying to make this criminal, because of election interference … And I think they’ll do it because I think they’re crazy … This group of people, Marxists, communists, fascists – this group of people is horrible for this country. And what they’re trying to do is practice election interference. The only difference between me and almost everybody else is that so far, every time I get sued, my poll numbers went way up. Because the American public gets it. And because I’m able to explain to people, the American public gets it.”
Thus far, Trump appears to be correct. His poll numbers have not been negatively affected by any of his legal woes. In fact, most surveys indicate that he continues to hold a commanding lead over his nearest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. A Trump indictment by a Justice Department seen by many Americans as highly politicized will probably only add fuel to the former president’s anti-establishment fire.
