Why Donald Trump was charged when so many others were not: Donald Trump faces significant legal jeopardy for his handling of classified documents, while various political figures of the past have not. It turns out there’s a good reason for that.
Donald Trump Is In Some Serious Trouble
Ever since the announcement last Thursday that Donald Trump would be indicted for his handling of classified information, the primary argument made by Trump and his defenders has been less that he is innocent of the crime, but rather that there are “double standards” and a “two-tiered system of justice,” and that it’s unfair for Trump to be charged with such a crime while Joe Biden, Mike Pence, David Petraeus, Hillary Clinton, Sandy Berger, and others were not.
The truth is, some of those people did, in fact, suffer for their handling of classified documents.
Petraeus and Berger were both charged with crimes, with each agreeing to plead guilty and while neither received any jail time, neither of them ever worked in government again after that.
Although ironically, Trump considered naming Petreaus Secretary of State in 2016, years after the former general and CIA director’s documents scandal.
As for Hillary Clinton, while she was not charged with a crime, her own documents scandal had a lot to do with her losing her election for the presidency.
The Difference
However, there seem to be quite a lot of differences between Trump’s handling of classified documents and those of everyone else: It was a lot more documents, the documents were much more sensitive, and Trump was singularly uncooperative with authorities who were investigating the matter.
The Washington Post published an analysis of that same question. It notes that if Trump had returned all of the documents he had when he was first asked by the National Archives to return them, he probably would not have been charged.
“This is not a case about what documents were taken, it’s about what former president Trump did after the government sought to retrieve those documents,” Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor told the Post. “That’s not the kind of evidence you typically find in a case like this, and it’s certainly not the type of evidence so far that has come out of the Biden investigation or the Clinton email server case.”
So how, exactly, is this different from the Hillary Clinton email case?
“As a presidential candidate running against Clinton in 2016, he had railed against her use of a personal email server to conduct government business while serving as secretary of state — an arrangement that led to classified information being shared on a nonclassified, nongovernment computer server,” The Post said. “Clinton’s case was also different from Trump’s in another key respect: While the email chains discussed classified topics, they were not classified documents in the traditional sense, with extensive markings and acronyms.”
Indeed, as pointed out by the Post, while he had railed against Clinton on the 2016 campaign trail after her lawyers deleted 30,000 emails that were deemed unrelated to her work as secretary of state, Trump praised the lawyer for doing so, in discussion with his own team.
Another attorney quoted by the Post agreed.
“I really don’t think there’s any plausible comparison between the Trump case and the Hillary Clinton case,” Robert Kelner, the D.C. attorney., told the newspaper. “The key difference is that in the Hillary Clinton case, as we learned from the Department of Justice inspector general report, there was no evidence that Hillary Clinton sought to obstruct justice. … The focus of the Trump indictment is on his rather stark effort to obstruct justice. That’s the fundamental difference.”
Kelner added that the case against Trump looks strong.
“They have essentially game, set and match against Trump based on the evidence in the indictment,” he said.
As for Biden’s documents case, a small number of documents were discovered in the president’s homes, all of which he appears to have turned over. The Justice Department has already determined that former Vice President and current presidential candidate Mike Pence, who also had classified documents at his home, will not face charges.
Author Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
From 19FortyFive
The End of Donald Trump Has Arrived
