The recent announcement of a 37-count indictment against former President Donald Trump coincided with the President’s 77th birthday. It’s not much of a birthday present, to say the least, and Trump spent the night before his big day giving a spirited defense of himself in front of a crowd in Miami, Florida.
“Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country,” Trump said, slamming the prosecution of him as part of a plot to rob him of reelection to the presidency and punish him for standing up to the “Deep State.”
What’s This Case All About?
The indictments surround Trump’s alleged mishandling of various classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to the charges, Donald Trump stored various government records at his residence contrary to federal law and obstructed efforts to return them to the US National Archives as per law.
These allegedly included documents denoted as “highly sensitive” to US national security.
Trump left the presidency in January of 2021, taking a large number of letters, cards and files with him at the time. He and his staff were requested to return all classified documents in May of 2021. Trump returned 15 boxes following this request, 14 of which contained classified material.
Subsequently, the FBI started a criminal investigation, obtaining a subpoena from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in May 2022. The subpoena demanded that Trump return any and all remaining classified documents. At this point, prosecutors claim Trump actively “obstructed” FBI investigators by only sending back some of the secret files he had and urging his aide Walt Nauta to hide remaining boxes around Mar-a-Lago.
The Mar-a-Lago Raid
Mar-a-Lago was searched by the FBI in August of 2022 under a warrant alleging Trump had taken records out of the White House that could be illegal under the Espionage Act of 1917 and failed to return them. During this raid, agents allegedly extracted 11,000 documents including some marked top secret and others marked TS/SCI which relate to matters which can cause “grave” harm to US national security.
Donald Trump sued the DOJ for the raid to have the right to appoint a third-party special master to act as a middleman in limiting any DOJ access to the specific documents seized in the August raid, a role filled by Judge Raymond Dearie.
However, in December of 2022 Dearie’s ability to act as special master was revoked by an appeals court and the DOJ inspected all documents, leading to a 37-count indictment from special counsel Jack Smith on June 9, 2023 accusing Trump and Nauta of criminal wrongdoing in mishandling and illegally storing classified material.
Why Did Donald Trump Keep These Documents?
The question remains of why Donald Trump didn’t just send back every document he could when he was first asked to do so in May of 2021. Trump has been defended by allies who say he simply wanted records from his time in office. Trump argued that since he had the power to declassify these documents as POTUS, he did nothing wrong by taking them to Mar-a-Lago and that his act of taking them was equivalent to declassifying them. Prosecutors dispute this, however.
At this time it’s simply not clear why Trump was keeping all these documents or why he didn’t return all of them when first requested. It’s worth noting that Trump published a book of letters written to him by celebrities and world leaders in April of 2023 (“Letters to Trump”) and this may have also served as part of his motivation in keeping some of the correspondence between he and world leaders.
However, the DOJ alleges that the secret files included numerous other documents including some with deep relevance to US national security including those marked TS/SCI as noted. This allegedly includes a top secret Pentagon document of what to do in the event of war with Iran as well as documents related to America’s nuclear program.
The specific charges against Trump include 31 felony counts claiming he willfully retained documents illegal under the Espionage Act, four counts that he was conspiring or attempting to hide these documents and two additional counts that he was lying about the documents and making false statements to law enforcement.
Should Trump Go To Jail?
If found guilty, Trump faces up to 400 years in prison. There is no doubt that these charges have the potential to put Trump behind bars, but is the case as exaggerated as Trump and his defenders say? Trump has argued that former President Bill Clinton and current President Biden have done worse than he did and did not face prosecution.
There is precedent for successful prosecution on charges like these, but trying to push Trump from the 2024 presidential race and jailing him would set a horrific precedent for an already deeply polarized country and possibly lead to widescale violence. At this point, it could be said that the further this case is pushed the closer America comes to all out social and political crisis.
Paul Brian is an author and freelance journalist who has reported for Reuters, BBC and Foreign Policy, and contributed to the Spectator, the Federalist and the American Conservative. He has covered global events from Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Middle East to South America.
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