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Susan Young is the Bangor Daily News opinion editor.
Former President Donald Trump called Tuesday, the day he was arraigned on 37 charges related to the mishandling of classified material and obstruction of justice in a Florida courtroom, a day that “will go down in infamy.” Beyond the insult to the real day that will live in infamy — Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor — Trump is right.
His indictment on charges of violating the Espionage Act, conspiring to obstruct justice and making false statements to investigators will go down in infamy, but not for the reasons he suggests. The charges against Trump are unprecedented, not because this is some kind of witch hunt, but because the extent of the former president’s alleged mishandling of government documents, along with his alleged steps to conceal and withhold them, are unprecedented.
Don’t take my word for it. Read the indictment. Here’s a much-quoted paragraph from the 49-page document:
“The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack. The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”
According to the indictment, the former president had documents, some apparently stored in a bathroom, about our country’s nuclear programs and military operations. Documents that, if shared, could harm the U.S., its military and intelligence personnel and our country’s efforts to gather vital security information in the future. We, so far, have no idea why Trump had this information and what he did with it or planned to do with it.
These are hair-raising allegations, backed by reams of evidence, photographs and testimony.
But there’s more. Not only did Trump allegedly keep these sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago, his seaside club in Florida, he r efused to turn them over when told to and then tried to cover this up. He suggested that some documents should be hidden or destroyed, according to the indictment. Some boxes were moved and concealed from the FBI, the indictment says. When the FBI obtained a warrant and searched Mar-a-Lago in August it found classified documents on the property, including some labeled “SCI,” which stands for highly classified “sensitive compartmented information.”
Consider what former Trump loyalists have said about the seriousness of the case, and about the ridiculousness of casting the ongoing investigation as a witch hunt.
“If the allegations are true — and there are lots of indications they are — President Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them, and when given the opportunity to return them, he chose not to do that,” Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state under Trump, said on Fox and Friends on Tuesday. He explained that mishandling documents and then refusing to return them was “inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.”
“This idea of presenting Trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt, is ridiculous,” Bill Barr, who served as attorney general under Trump, told Fox News early in the week.
“He was totally wrong that he had the right to have those documents,” Barr said, emphasizing that Trump had many opportunities to return them when repeatedly asked to do so. “Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets the country has.”
“Battle plans for an attack on another country or Defense Department documents about our capabilities are in no universe Donald J. Trump’s personal documents,” he added.
The charges against Trump and his arraignment this week are part of a long judicial process that will continue to play out in the weeks and months ahead. But from what we, and former members of Trump’s former inner circle have seen and heard so far, even the word “infamy” may not be strong enough to describe the gravity of the crimes he is accused of committing.
“This is a devastating indictment,” John Bolton, who served as national security advisor under Trump, said on CNN on Monday. “I speak here as an alumnus of the Justice Department myself, because not only is it powerful, it’s very narrowly tailored. They didn’t throw everything up against the wall to see what would stick that this really is a rifle shot. And I think it should be the end of Donald Trump’s political career.”
We can’t lose sight of the real infamy in this situation: The former president is charged with having extremely sensitive documents that he had no right to, refusing to turn them over and then lying about it.
