Trump’s legal turmoil as he appears in federal court in Miami

A long-standing myth enveloping former president Donald Trump is that he routinely eludes law enforcement. While he has spent decades probing the law’s boundaries, enjoying the insulation from legal accountability that wealth provides and shredding civic norms, the reality is that he has rarely faced robust and unforgiving prosecutions — until he entered and departed the White House.

One argument is that law enforcement didn’t come knocking until Trump’s presidential years because he then became a political target. In that scenario, law enforcement and the courts are untrustworthy and partisan actors. If none of that works for you, here’s a third, more straightforward argument for why Trump is in trouble: He broke the law.

If you harbour any doubts about that, a federal criminal indictment involving his misappropriation of classified government records is a sobering and tragicomic tutorial. Trump stashed the goodies at his Palm Beach home, Mar-a-Lago, and appears to have made matters worse by trying to hide them once the feds asked after them.

Importance of classified documents

The indictment is replete with details of Trump allegedly directing that the documents be hidden from investigators. He is said to have suggested to his attorney that they be destroyed. The indictment has photos of the documents in various Mar-a-Lago locations, including a ballroom.

They allegedly made their way to a bathroom at one point. The documents, according to the indictment, contained information about US military and defence secrets, nuclear weapons, as well as military vulnerabilities. The indictment notes that if the documents got into the open they could have compromised national security.

The indictment also makes clear that Trump knew the importance of classified documents before and during his presidency, yet he made off with them anyway.

Trump faces a dizzying array of charges stemming from a lengthy Justice Department investigation that led to the indictment. They include wilful retention of national defence information, corruptly concealing documents, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.

The gravity of the potential crimes is apparent. And the indictment, handed up by a grand jury in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida, outlines one of the most momentous and perilous legal confrontations the former president has faced to date.

Penalties could include lengthy prison terms associated with each crime, though Trump is likely to get a softer landing because he’s a former president and because political fallout abounds.

Act of open legal warfare

Word of the indictment became public after Trump himself leaked word of it on social media on Thursday evening. He assailed the Justice Department’s integrity and described the indictment as an “act of open legal ‘warfare’. Given how swiftly some Republicans dismissed the severity and bona fides of the pending federal charges — and their behaviour for years now — too many of them will continue to favour lawlessness.

Not all Republicans have followed this script. Former Attorney General William Barr has said the Justice Department’s investigation of the former president isn’t a “witch hunt” and has cited the integrity of the probe. “This says more about Trump than it does the Department of Justice,” he declared in one recent interview.

Trump, who was recently found liable for sexual assault and defamation, is also mired in civil and criminal fraud probes in New York. He’s also at the centre of a Georgia investigation of voting fraud involving the 2020 election. In case you’ve forgotten, he was impeached twice as president.

And if the authorities can also rope Trump in for absconding with classified documents and trying to torch the Constitution, well, wow, that’s a lot of stuff.

You might feel worried enough to ask yourself what America is coming to.

Bloomberg

Timothy L. O’Brien is a columnist and author of “Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald.”