Editorial: Moment of disgrace

The latest indictment of Trump eclipses the first one in terms of both legal gravity and political peril

The spectacle of shame continues for Donald Trump as he becomes the first former president in American history to have been indicted in a federal criminal case for mishandling classified documents. If convicted on any of the seven counts, handed down by a federal grand jury, the maverick Republican leader, running for the presidency again, could be locked up in jail as the case is of a very serious nature concerning the nation’s secrets. He was already the first former or sitting president to be charged with a crime in March in another case pertaining to the election-eve payment of hush money to a porn star with whom he had a sexual tryst. The latest indictment eclipses the first one in terms of both legal gravity and political peril. The charge against him is that he stashed away a trove of classified documents after leaving the office and then tried to obstruct the government’s efforts to reclaim them. The FBI carted away some 11,000 papers after serving a search warrant on Trump who now faces charges of wilfully retaining national defence secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice. More than 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021. There is a possibility of him being indicted in two other cases — over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia and his role in inciting the Capitol attack in 2021 when a mob of his supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the confirmation of President Joe Biden’s election victory.

In the US, an indictment is a formal notice that there is enough evidence to charge a person with a crime. It is not a conviction but is among the first moves a prosecutor can make to bring a case to trial. Now, the biggest challenge facing prosecutors is whether they can prove that Trump knowingly and intentionally violated the law. In May 2021, the US Justice Department used the Espionage Act to charge an FBI intelligence analyst, Kendra Kingsbury, with illegally removing classified documents and taking them to her home. The analyst pleaded guilty last year and faces up to 10 years in prison. It is the same charge that Trump now faces. As is his wont, Trump has gone on the offensive despite facing a flurry of cases. Even before the indictment, he stepped up efforts to delegitimise the investigations, arguing that he had been unfairly prosecuted. So far, his core supporters have stuck with him including those running against him for the Republican nomination next year. With Trump gearing up to play the victim card, it will be a challenge for the US authorities to ensure that the legal proceedings are conducted peacefully.

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