Well, we guess it was inevitable. Donald Trump has been indicted yet again, according to multiple outlets.
The former President of the United States has reportedly been charged on seven federal criminal counts, though exactly what those are has not yet been revealed. However, we can probably guess it’s some obstruction of justice in there.
Trump has been under criminal investigation since hundreds of top secret classified documents were found at his office in Mar-a-Lago last summer. The ex-Prez allegedly took some very dangerous state secrets with him, something he was not allowed to do as a private citizen. When the National Archives found out about the missing docs, they tried over and over to get him to return them — but he and his lawyers dodged them at every turn. Eventually the FBI raided the Palm Peach resort and found a treasure trove.
So the proof he had the docs has been there — the investigation, led by special counsel Jack Smith, has been to find out if Trump committed a crime with the docs and/or committed a crime to hide the docs. If he knew he wasn’t supposed to have them and took them anyway, that’s an issue. But the bigger issue was if he knew he was breaking the law and lied to the government about it. Hence the speculation about obstruction charges. Just lying to the feds to hide a crime is enough to be charged.
Related: Trump Allegedly Practiced Hiding Documents From Feds
This is the big difference between Trump’s documents scandal and the non-scandals of Joe Biden and Mike Pence. Both the POTUS and former Veep were revealed to have docs they weren’t supposed to have at private residences, too — but both cooperated fully and returned what they were supposed to immediately. If Trump had just done that, we imagine he would have been fine. But that’s assuming all this was actually a mistake…
Of course, it’s also possible, shockingly enough, that Trump may have violated the Espionage Act. Yeah, for real. These are top secret national defense documents, so there’s no legitimate reason Trump could want them as a private citizen. What he intended to do with them we have no idea — but there have been reports of what he did do with them. We’ve heard sources claim the ex-POTUS was showing the documents to visitors at Mar-a-Lago. It sounds idiotic, we know. But even if all he was doing was showing off that he had them, if he showed them to anyone without classified clearance, he broke the law. Normal people go to prison for this. Not charging him simply because he was the president puts presidents above the law. And frankly that’s B.S. No one should be above the law in this country. Not politicians, not billionaires, no one.
Innerestingly, we may not even have gotten this breaking news quite so soon if it weren’t for Trump himself. He was the first to reveal the indictment, posting angrily to his Truth Social account on Thursday, leading every big news organization to then confirm it with their sources:
“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States… I AM AN INNOCENT MAN! This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America.”
Yeah, yeah. Another conspiracy theory, in which the entire justice system, election process, intelligence community, his own former employees and aides, and of course the media are just making up lies about him. We’ve been here before. At this point you have to believe everyone else in the world is in on this grand conspiracy, or… one New York real estate mogul/reality star is corrupt. It’s pretty simple from where we’re standing.
He’s also taken to calling it “the Boxes Hoax” — because boxes sounds more benign when you don’t say what was in the boxes: top secret classified national defense documents that no private citizen should have.
Trump also claims he has been “summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM.” Why share the location and time? As much as he’s been trying to weaponize his followers, we worry he could be trying to mobilize another riot to stop it. Sigh…
Obviously Trump is running for president AGAIN in 2024. It’ll be very inneresting indeed to see how a second indictment (to go along with the Stormy Daniels one from earlier this year) affects that. Oddly no one ever bothered to make laws about running for president while under criminal indictment or even while in prison for federal crimes. Weird, right? There are like eight states where felons can’t vote for president, but a felon can still become president. Politics in 2023, y’all!
[Image via NBC News/YouTube/Department of Justice.]
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