Andrew Harnik / AP
Former President Donald Trump announces he is running for president for the third time at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Nov. 15, 2022.
Tuesday, June 13, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Disgraced former President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear before a federal judge today in Miami to face 37 criminal counts. That’s in addition to the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Trump is facing in New York state. And then there are possible charges in Georgia on the horizon as well. More civil suits, too. Trump may finally be held to account for his multidecade legacy of abuse, scandal, lies and insurrection.
Thus, our most ignorant and ignoble president sinks even lower. History will not be kind.
Today’s arraignment marks the beginning of what is sure to be a long and deliberate legal process that will test the fortitude of the United States justice system and the unity of our republic, just as Trump himself wanted to test how much of our system he could break.
Legally, Trump must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in the eyes of the court of law. The burden must be on special counsel Jack Smith to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump knowingly, intentionally and illegally obstructed justice by retaining and concealing government documents. The U.S. Constitution demands it.
However, the Constitution demands no such protections in the court of public opinion where the Office of the Special Counsel, the Justice Department and President Joe Biden are already on trial.
Trump’s MAGA base of supporters have spent months lobbing unfounded accusations that any charges brought against Trump must, by definition, be politically motivated. These arguments are nonsense and point to the blind foolishness of Trump’s followers. If anything, it is their statements that must, by definition, be politically motivated. After all, up until last week, they didn’t know what Trump was being charged with. They still don’t know the evidence against him.
Having now seen the charges, some tin-foil hat wearing Trump acolytes are pointing to the existence of classified documents at the homes of Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, neither of whom have been criminally charged, as evidence of a politically motivated prosecution.
But Trump is accused of knowingly and repeatedly lying to federal agents, the grand jury and even his own attorneys about the existence and location of classified documents and actively conspiring to keep the documents concealed. This stands in stark contrast to both Biden and Pence, who cooperated fully with investigators, volunteered to have their homes and offices searched, and immediately surrendered the documents in their possession.
As former Massachusetts governor, current Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said, “Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so.”
We agree with Sen. Romney. But we also understand that in the court of public opinion, each individual member of the public will decide what they want to hear and what they want to believe. Filing charges against a former U.S. president was already a bold move requiring a strong evidentiary case, but the zealotry of Trump’s base and the echo chamber of misinformation created by propaganda news outlets and social media platforms make it even more important for Smith to produce clear and compelling evidence.
Veiled threats of violence by Trump supporters swirled throughout the weekend with Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs tweeting about an “eye for an eye.” Former Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake went one step further, essentially calling on Trump’s supporters to take up arms in defense of their idol.
“If you want to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the N.R.A.,” she said at a convention of Georgia Republicans. “We will not let you lay a finger on President Trump. Frankly, now is the time to cling to our guns and our religion.”
A lawless president seeks to rally more lawlessness to his cause.
This is not to say that Smith should not have brought the charges. The charges against Trump are serious. The documents he concealed from federal investigators are alleged to contain information about the weapons, defense systems and even nuclear capabilities of the United States and our foreign allies, as well as information about vulnerabilities in the U.S. defense grid and contingency plans in the event of an attack on our country.
It’s unclear what Trump planned to do with the information, but the indictment accuses him of trying to conspire with everyone from his attorneys to his valet about how he could avoid subpoenas and conceal the documents, all while repeatedly telling the world that he was cooperating fully with the FBI and grand jury investigations.
If Smith can prove the charges to be true, Trump should face severe consequences. No person should be above the law, not even an ex-president.
