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      Biden Sticks to ‘Say Nothing’ Strategy on the Trump Indictment

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      President Biden and his advisers have concluded that commenting on the indictment would only feed into Republican accusations of a politically motivated prosecution.President Biden and his top aides in the West Wing, along with members of his administration and re-election campaign at all levels, are executing a carefully crafted strategy in response to the federal indictment of former President Donald J. Trump: Say nothing.Mr. Biden has always insisted that he would never interfere with the independence of the Justice Department. But he and his aides also believe that commenting on the case will only feed into the accusations, from Mr. Trump and members of the Republican Party, of a politically motivated prosecution.It is a stance that will test a voluble president with a penchant for saying what is on his mind, even when it is not politically advantageous. With his predecessor and 2024 rival charged with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and mishandling classified documents, Mr. Biden and his aides are eager to keep themselves far away from the Trump political and legal spectacle as it migrates south to Miami.For Mr. Biden, keeping his distance also keeps the focus squarely on Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden ran for office in 2020 with a pledge of restoring a sense of pre-Trump normalcy to the White House; the White House is betting that avoiding substantive public comments on the investigations into Mr. Trump will remind voters of that contrast.“President Biden and his campaign won’t be distracted by Trump’s chaos,” said Cristóbal Alex, a veteran of Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign and White House. “The focus is on the American people and what the Biden administration accomplished in the first term.”Even a stray comment by the president during one of his scrums with reporters, could be seized on by Mr. Trump and his allies as evidence that Mr. Biden is exerting undue influence in the case against his predecessor.“This is a president who respects the rule of law, and he has said that since Day 1,” Olivia Dalton, the deputy White House press secretary, told reporters on Friday. “That’s precisely why we’re not commenting here.”Ms. Dalton went on to say “no comment” a half-dozen more times in the next 10 minutes. Mr. Biden explained his own silence to reporters on Thursday, just hours before the charges against Mr. Trump were unveiled.“Because you notice I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m honest.”Asked again to weigh in on Friday, as he traveled to a community college in North Carolina, Mr. Biden was blunt: “I have no comment.”Mr. Biden’s determined self-censorship comes with a cost. It prevents the president from defending the government’s legal system against Mr. Trump’s relentless, yearslong attacks, which are now amplified and echoed by his Republican allies and some of his competitors for the party’s presidential nomination. In a social media post on Friday, Mr. Trump lashed out at “the ‘Thugs’ from the Department of Injustice.” It will fall to others to rebut those attacks. White House and Biden campaign aides on Friday declined to respond to the former president’s claims of being treated unfairly.Mr. Biden is himself is the subject of a special counsel’s investigation into handling of classified documents found at his home and an office he used before becoming president.The president’s attorneys have long stressed that the case differs from the one involving Mr. Trump. Mr. Biden and his aides have said they cooperated with Justice Department officials from the beginning of the inquiry. The indictment of Mr. Trump, which was unsealed on Friday, says that the former president conspired to conceal the documents and prevent their return to the National Archives.A person familiar with the investigation into Mr. Biden’s handling of documents said there is no indication that Robert Hur, the special counsel in that case, is nearing any decision.Mr. Biden’s allies urged a sense of calm among Democrats and said the president’s campaign should continue to focus on promoting his accomplishments in office and warn voters about Republican efforts to restrict abortion rights — which has polled as the party’s best issue since the Supreme Court, with three Trump appointees, ended the constitutional right to an abortion last year.“We just need to stay focused on our message and not get caught up in the Trump circus,” said Representative Jennifer McClellan of Virginia, a Democrat who is a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board.On Friday, Mr. Biden put his strategy of avoidance into practice.At the same hour the special counsel unsealed the indictment against Mr. Trump, drawing the eyes of the nation to the multiple charges against him, Mr. Biden was in North Carolina, touring a work force training program at a community college.Later — not long after the special counsel in Mr. Trump’s case spoke to the nation about the indictment — Mr. Biden spoke at Fort Liberty about the need to help the spouses of military service members to find employment.The contrast could not have been clearer. And, at least for the moment, Mr. Biden remained good to his word. Asked on Friday afternoon whether he had talked to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland about the Trump case, Mr. Biden said he had not.“I have not spoken to him at all and I’m not going to speak with him,” the president said, adding for good measure: “And I have no comment on that.” More

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      The Trump Indictment: A Changed Landscape

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      More from our inbox:Our Failure to Support New Parents and BabiesThe indictment followed criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump in a hush-money case brought by local prosecutors in New York.Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Is Indicted Over Classified Files” (front page, June 9):The indictment of Donald Trump heralds a new chapter in American history. His trial could come sometime next year during the Republican primary season. He will continue to tell his followers that he has done nothing wrong and that this is all part of a vendetta by the Washington elite.His followers will continue to support him. If he is found guilty in any of his trials, he will appeal. If he is nominated, the appeals process will play out during the election campaign. He could be elected and then have a guilty verdict upheld as he is about to be sworn into office.Mr. Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith serve as the protagonists in the first act of a Shakespearean tragedy. The full effects on America of Mr. Smith’s essential action will not be known until the final act.Sidney WeissmanHighland Park, Ill.To the Editor:Is no one above the law? We are about to find out. The stakes couldn’t be higher if the country hopes to remain a legitimate democracy.Tom McGrawGrand Rapids, Mich.To the Editor:The indictment of Donald Trump on federal criminal charges might improve his odds of receiving the Republican nomination, but it almost certainly means that if nominated, he would lose the general election.It may increase the sympathy and anger of millions of his hard-core supporters. They will give him even more money to run and turn out in even greater numbers in the primaries, but it will not persuade many, if any, supporters of President Biden to vote against him in November 2024.This is not yet a banana republic. The greater number of Americans who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 will continue to believe that this and future indictments are legitimate.Even if Mr. Trump manages to beat all the charges against him, he has been further disgraced by all these legal battles. And the effect of the indictments after the lessons of the Jan. 6 hearings will bring new voters, particularly first-time voters, to Mr. Biden.If he remains healthy, President Biden wins again.Allen SmithSalisbury, Md.To the Editor:Journalists need to get to the meat of the Republicans’ support of Donald Trump’s behavior in the classified documents case and ask them the following questions:Are you saying you do not trust the Florida grand jury, made up of ordinary citizens from a state that twice voted for Mr. Trump? The prosecutor presents the facts, but the grand jurors vote on whether to indict. Do you really think all of them are on an anti-Trump witch hunt?Why are you making judgments about this case when you don’t know the charges or the facts? It sounds as if you are advocating for Mr. Trump to be able to break the law at will with no consequences; do you deny that?Stop allowing Republican politicians to hide behind specious arguments bereft of facts or even common sense. They are spouting anti-democratic nonsense, and the press should be exposing them for what they are.Jean PhillipsFlorence, Ore.To the Editor:In all the discussions, among all the various talking heads, about the various aspects of this new criminal indictment, one significant factor has been overlooked.At no time, during any judicial proceedings, will Donald Trump ever take the witness stand. It will never happen.Stuart AltshulerNew YorkTo the Editor:It is vital that Donald Trump’s trial be scheduled to start no later than four months after his arraignment, so that the trial can be finished well before the Iowa caucuses. This can be done by actions of the judge assigned to the case immediately after the arraignment, setting strict time limits for all pretrial matters.Both parties have experienced attorneys who can promptly complete pretrial matters, including discovery and pretrial motions, within that four-month period so that the trial can end well before the voters have to make their decisions.Robert LernerMilwaukeeThe writer is a retired lawyer who tried many cases in federal courts as a prosecutor or as a defense attorney.To the Editor:Jack Smith, all I can say is thank you. Thank you for believing in our country. Thank you for trying to uphold our democracy. Thank you for your courage.I have tears in my eyes. You have restored my hope. Grateful. Stay well.Dody Osborne CoxGuilford, Conn.Our Failure to Support New Parents and Babies Shuran Huang for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Risk to Mothers Lasts a Full Year After Childbirth” (front page, May 28) and “A 3-Month-Old Baby Was Found Dead Near a Bronx Expressway” (nytimes.com, May 29):As a midwife working with pregnant people and new parents, I found these articles — about increasing rates of maternal mortality from hypertension, mental illness and other causes and about parents charged with murder or reckless endangerment — heartbreaking.This represents the total failure of our society to support pregnant people and new parents. After receiving only rudimentary maternity services with limited access to care, new parents are turned out of the medical system without proper follow-up and support. Our health care system has not responded to the increasing challenges of parenting in the modern world, leaving parents and children to face preventable dangers.Patient-centered care in pregnancy and improved postpartum services could prevent the suffering and deaths through early identification of risks and swift intervention. Access to care is far too limited.There has been enough hand-wringing about our horrible statistics. We need immediate investment in maternity services, expanded access to obstetric and midwifery care, mental health services, postpartum care and support for new parents.How many more deaths will it take for us to invest in the well-being and safety of our parents and children?Laura WeilSan FranciscoThe writer is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine.To the Editor:Our nation’s failure to properly care for expectant and new mothers and their babies speaks to a larger problem: Our health care system is siloed and focused on delivering urgent services. We treat pregnancy as an event, focused on a safe delivery and a healthy baby and mother, and our systems respond to problems only when they arise.There is a pressing need to address increasing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality — and the many other health issues across the country that are rapidly getting worse — by considering the entirety of factors that make up a person’s health and well-being. We need to spend more time upstream, creating the vital conditions that are key to good health and well-being, like a healthy environment, humane housing, meaningful work and sufficient wealth.If we increase our investments in order to create the conditions people need to thrive, we can build the long-lasting change that is needed to prevent many serious health problems. This is much harder than treating a single person presenting in the emergency room, but it is a much smarter investment for our long-term health and well-being.Alan LieberMorristown, N.J.The writer is chief operating officer and chief health care strategist for the Rippel Foundation, which is working to rethink systems that have an impact on health and well-being. More

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      Trump’s Indictment: Given What We Know, Not Charging Him Would Be the Greater Scandal

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      Donald Trump has been indicted. Again. And this time, it appears richly deserved, even if one includes special considerations related to the unique recent history of public officials mishandling classified documents.Before we dive into the details of the case, it’s important to restate the general principles that should govern any prosecution decision. The first principle, as I’ve argued, is that no person is above the law. That’s, of course, easy to say in the abstract, but perhaps a better way to frame it is that Trump’s status as a former president means that he should be treated no better and — crucially — no worse than ordinary American citizens.“No better” means that Trump should face charges if, for example, I would face charges under similar facts. It really is that straightforward.“No worse” means don’t stretch the law to indict the man. That may have been the case in March, when the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, indicted Trump on charges related to hush-money payments made to the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels. As I explained at some length, there are real questions as to the legal sufficiency of Bragg’s complaint, including whether federal law pre-empts his state charges. It does not appear to be an easy case to make.But in the case of the new indictment by the special counsel, Jack Smith, “no worse” comes with an additional twist. Trump’s case is not the first high-profile instance of a senior public official mishandling classified information. Hillary Clinton comes to mind, and while the Department of Justice might be able to prosecute Trump under facts similar to those in Clinton’s case, it should not. I can think of few things that would damage the legitimacy of the American criminal justice system more than for the department to impose a double standard on Republican and Democratic presidential contenders.So in addition to evaluating the relevant law, the Justice Department should apply the same standard to Trump as it did to Clinton, the standard articulated by the F.B.I. director at the time, James Comey, in his public statement announcing that the bureau would not recommend prosecution.As Comey said of Clinton’s storing classified information on a private server, “There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.”But Comey declined to recommend prosecution because he said he couldn’t find evidence that the Justice Department had prosecuted any case under similar facts: “All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct or indications of disloyalty to the United States or efforts to obstruct justice.”That’s the Comey test: no prosecution absent evidence of one or more of the factors above. I disagreed with the decision at the time and still disagree. I’m a former Judge Advocate General’s Corps officer, an Army lawyer who helped investigate classified information breaches when I served in Iraq, and I feel confident that I would have faced military charges under similar facts.But once the Comey test was articulated, it should be evenly applied. And thus the critical question for the political legitimacy — and not just legal sufficiency — of the indictment is whether there is evidence of intentionality or obstruction in the Trump case that was absent in Clinton’s. (This is the same question that should be asked of the mishandling of classified documents by Joe Biden and Mike Pence.)As of Thursday night, we had not yet seen the indictment, so there is a chance my assessment will change. But a review of the publicly available evidence indicates that Trump’s conduct likely does meet the Comey test. There is evidence of intentionality and obstruction.Justice Department court filings related to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant make a series of damning claims against Trump. According to the department, in 2021 the National Archives and Records Administration corresponded with Trump’s team, hoping to obtain the “transfer of what it perceived were missing records from his administration.” In January 2022, Trump provided the archives with 15 boxes of records. When it reviewed the documents, it found 184 with classification markings and 25 marked “top secret,” including some with extraordinary “H.C.S.” and “S.I.” markings. “H.C.S.” indicates classified information “derived from clandestine human sources; “S.I.” indicates information “derived from the monitoring of foreign communications signals by other than the intended recipients.” In other words, these documents were quite sensitive.The inclusion of this information among the files in question caused the National Archives to contact the Justice Department, which promptly began efforts to determine if Trump retained any additional classified information. As the department told a federal court, the “F.B.I. developed evidence” that “dozens of additional boxes” remained at Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago and they were “also likely to contain classified information.”The Justice Department then obtained a grand jury subpoena demanding “any and all” records in Trump’s possession that contained classification markings. What happened next is what makes this case quite serious for Trump. On June 3, 2022, the Trump legal team provided a small batch of files to department officials and included a sworn certification letter indicating that Trump’s custodian of records had conducted a “diligent search” to locate any documents responsive to the subpoena and that the custodian had produced all such documents.According to the Justice Department, this certification was not accurate. While the Trump team produced 38 additional documents bearing classification markings (including 17 marked “top secret”) in its subpoena response, the department believed that there were still more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Its filing states that “the F.B.I. uncovered multiple sources of evidence” indicating that the response to the grand jury subpoena was “incomplete.” Even worse, “the government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed” from their storage area and “that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”This is the evidence that precipitated the grant of a search warrant, and on Aug. 8 the F.B.I. searched Mar-a-Lago. It claims that search uncovered more than 100 additional classified records, “including information classified at the highest levels.”These claims alone — if proved at trial — already provide evidence of intentionality and obstruction. Close observers of the case will note that I have not included an analysis of numerous news reports indicating that Trump engaged in even more egregious conduct, including ones that he was caught on a recording discussing a highly sensitive document detailing military plans for confronting Iran.Before we see the indictment, we know only the broad brushstrokes of the possible claims. But those brushstrokes paint a picture of intentionality and obstruction, including allegations of efforts to conceal and remove documents and the false certification of a complete response to the grand jury subpoena.Times news reports indicate that Trump is facing charges that include retaining national defense information, obstruction of justice, false statements, contempt of court and conspiracy. Each of those charges is substantiated even by the partial information we currently possess. The available evidence indicates that Trump’s conduct meets both the legal test for prosecution and the more lenient Comey test applied to Clinton.To say that the Trump indictment is credible is not the same thing as saying that he is guilty. We possess only partial information, and he has not yet mounted his legal defense. But for now, the evidence seems sufficient to support an indictment. Indeed, given what we know now, not charging Trump would be the greater scandal. It would place presidents outside the rule of federal law and declare to the American public that its presidents enjoy something akin to a royal privilege. But this is a republic, not a monarchy, and it is right to make Donald Trump answer for the crimes he is accused of.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      How Jack Smith Can Succeed in His Case Against Trump

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      It has been expected for months, but the reality of it is no less staggering: The special counsel Jack Smith has brought seven federal charges against Donald Trump. It is the first time in our nation’s history that a former president has been indicted on federal charges, and among Mr. Trump’s many legal problems, it has the greatest likelihood of a pre-election conviction.The prosecution follows a long investigation into Mr. Trump’s possession of hundreds of classified documents and other presidential records at his private club in Florida and elsewhere after he left office. It poses unique challenges, and not only because the defendant is a former president who is running for re-election in an already tense political environment.Prosecutors will have to reckon with the challenge of publicly trying a case that involves some of our nation’s most highly classified secrets.Furthermore, this case will inevitably have to be coordinated for scheduling purposes with the case against Mr. Trump by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, as well as potential future charges in Fulton County, Ga., and perhaps by Mr. Smith related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.Still, from what we know of the charges and publicly available evidence, Mr. Smith appears to have the upper hand with a compelling case. But the potential for conviction and actually winning a jury verdict are two very different things — particularly against the notoriously combative and slippery former president. To secure a conviction, Mr. Smith will have to overcome four significant hurdles.Keep things simpleOver two years (and counting), the case unfolded in twists and turns that have dipped into and out of a dizzying whirl of topics: the administration of presidential documents, delicate aspects of national security, classification and declassification of documents, special counsel regulations, the spectacle of a search warrant being executed by F.B.I. agents on the luxury resort of a former president and the legally dubious appointment of a special master by a rogue Florida district court judge.But for all that chaos and confusion, Mr. Smith’s job is straightforward. He must cut through it all and make clear to the jury that this case is about two simple things: First, a former president took documents containing some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets, which he was no more entitled to remove than the portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin hanging on the walls of the Oval Office. Second, when he was caught, he persistently made up excuses, lied and tried to cover up his behavior, which he continues to do.Mr. Trump took about 13,000 government documents, among them over 300 documents with classified markings, with some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets, reportedly containing secrets about Iran’s missile program, foreign nuclear issues, China and the leadership of France.By doing so, Mr. Trump put our national security at risk. When we consider these documents, we see not only paper but also the U.S. and allied human assets who gather our secrets and do so to keep America and the world safe. By putting this sensitive information in highly insecure circumstances, Mr. Trump put our nation, our allies and all of us as individuals in jeopardy.The indictment reportedly includes seven charges, related to willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice.The evidence a jury hears at trial must be organized around a simple theory of the case and streamlined into the form of readily understandable and convincing proof. Fortunately for Mr. Smith, everything we know about the case provides ample support for an easily digestible one-two narrative punch of Mr. Trump taking documents that didn’t belong to him and then lying about it to cover up his misdeeds.The Trump defenseOne usual challenge that may not be much of a hurdle is Mr. Trump’s defenses. His claim that he can declassify documents “even by thinking about it” is inimical to applicable law. And his claim that the Presidential Records Act gives him a right to attempt to keep these documents flies in the face of the statute.The justifications Mr. Trump has so far advanced are so thin and so inconsistent that we expect Mr. Smith will get an order from the judge that they are frivolous and may not be argued to the jury unless Mr. Trump introduces competent evidence to support them. (He most likely can’t.)These cases are so hard to defend that the usual approach is to plead guilty. That’s what other prominent defendants, such as the former Central Intelligence Agency directors John Deutch and David Petraeus, agreed to when caught with mishandling classified documents. (Mr. Deutch was pardoned before the charges were filed.) But Mr. Trump’s case is unique because of his characteristic refusal to ever admit wrongdoing. It’s nearly impossible to imagine him standing up in a courtroom in a plea deal and saying that he is guilty.By charging the case in the Southern District of Florida, the special counsel has wisely pre-empted one other potential defense: improper venue. The rule is that a case must be brought where the “essential conduct” took place, and here there was an argument for Washington, D.C., as an alternative, one with possibly friendlier juries for Mr. Smith. But there is potentially much at stake on the proper selection of venue: This term, the Supreme Court is deciding a case that looks at whether the price of selecting the wrong venue could be dismissal of the charges and prevention of prosecuting the offense again.The clock is tickingMr. Smith’s third hurdle is time. He will have to battle the clock. On the one hand, he has to ensure that Mr. Trump, like any defendant, has sufficient time to file motions challenging the charges and evidence and time to prepare for trial. The robust materials the government is required to provide to a defendant in discovery must be turned over promptly so the government does not extend the clock.Special attention is required by Mr. Smith here because the case involves classified evidence. That means the court will probably have to deal with motions under the Classified Information Procedures Act. These rules create avenues for the government to prosecute the case and protect classified information without having a defendant graymail the government with the risk of public disclosure.But because this case is in Florida, where the act is rarely used, rather than in the District of Columbia, where it is invoked more commonly, prosecutors will have to contend with a judge who may not have experience with these intricate issues. There is also the strong likelihood the government will be forced to seek other protective orders as well, as we saw New York Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan impose in the Manhattan case, to prevent Mr. Trump from using material obtained in discovery to intimidate or retaliate against witnesses or otherwise misuse discovery materials.American voters are entitled to a determination of Mr. Trump’s guilt at a trial. Ideally, that will happen before the presidential nominating process, but at a minimum, it must take place before the general election. That can be done while ensuring that the defendant has his day in court, with full due process rights to seek to be cleared of charges against him — or not, given the strength of the evidence against him.Persuade the American publicMr. Smith can educate the public in court filings that the charges are merited. He should follow the lead of the special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who held a news conference to explain his case directly to the American public during Watergate. In October 1973, as tensions were coming to a boil, with Mr. Cox having issued a grand jury subpoena for the incriminating Oval Office tapes of President Richard Nixon, the special prosecutor rejected a compromise offer from the White House to have a senator listen to the tapes and verify White House-drafted summaries. Mr. Cox chose to make a detailed presentation to the press and explain to the American people why he was seeking a ruling from the Supreme Court that he was entitled to the White House tapes and would not settle for a cherry-picked summary.Mr. Smith can make a public statement explaining, without straying from the four corners of the indictment, why the charges against Mr. Trump are consistent with — indeed, required by — previous Justice Department cases in which many defendants were charged in similar or even less egregious factual scenarios.It is impossible to overstate how essential it will be for Mr. Smith to overcome these hurdles and persuade the trial jury and the American people that whether they like the former president or not, whether they voted for him in the past or intend to vote for him again, he committed serious criminal acts. The consequence of doing that would be nothing short of affirmation of the rule of law in this country. The alternative is too grim to contemplate.Norman Eisen was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, is a professor at N.Y.U. School of Law. Joyce Vance, a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law and the author of the newsletter Civil Discourse, was the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump’s Indictment Puts Us Into Uncharted Waters

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      Former President Donald Trump finds himself once again facing indictment, this time in federal court, after an investigation into his handling of classified documents after departing the White House. The prospect of putting Mr. Trump on trial for serious crimes and sending him to prison has many Americans feeling giddy: Finally, justice might be done.Such reactions are understandable, but news of Mr. Trump’s legal jeopardy shouldn’t blind us to the political jeopardy that now confronts the nation.Other countries have tried, convicted and imprisoned former presidents, but the United States never has. We’ve been fortunate in this regard. Legal processes establish and maintain legitimacy by the appearance of impartiality. But when a public figure associated with one political party is prosecuted by officials associated with another, such appearances can become impossible to uphold. This is especially so when the public figure is a populist adept at exposing (and accusing opponents of concealing) base and self-interested motives behind righteous rhetoric about the rule of law.This corrosive dynamic is even more pronounced when the public figure is not only a former official but also a potential future one. Mr. Trump is running for president against President Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed the special counsel Jack Smith. That’s a scenario seemingly tailor-made to confirm and vindicate Mr. Trump’s longstanding claim that he’s the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt.We don’t have to speculate about the immediate political consequences. Public-spirited and law-abiding Americans believe the appropriate response of voters to news that their favored candidate faces indictment is to turn on him and run the other way. But the populist politics that are Mr. Trump’s specialty operate according to an inverse logic. Before the end of March, polls of the Republican primary electorate showed him hovering in the mid-40s and leading his nearest rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, by about 15 points. By the end of May, Mr. Trump was in the mid-50s and leading Mr. DeSantis by roughly 30 points.What happened at the end of March to elevate Mr. Trump’s standing? He was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg.Hard as it may be for some of us to believe, Mr. Trump’s indictment by the special counsel on federal charges could well boost him further, placing him in a position of even greater advantage against his rivals for the Republican nomination.That possibility typically prompts one of two responses from Democrats: one narrowly political (not to say cynical), the other more high-minded and focused on the law and public morals.The political response sees Mr. Trump benefiting in the G.O.P. primaries from indictment as a good thing, because the former president appears to be the most beatable alternative for Mr. Biden to face in the fall of 2024, and that will be even truer when Mr. Trump is embroiled in a federal trial on major charges and facing possible prison time. What’s good for Mr. Trump in the primaries, in other words, will be terrible for him in the general election.This may well be true, but not necessarily. Anyone who becomes one of two major party nominees has a shot at winning the White House. That’s especially true in our era of stark partisan polarization and intense negative partisanship. That Mr. Trump would be running against an opponent with persistently low approval ratings who will be 81 years old on Election Day 2024 only makes a Biden-Trump matchup more uncertain.The other response dismisses such concerns entirely. Let justice be done, we are told, though the heavens fall. To weigh political considerations in determining whether someone, even a former and possibly future president, should be prosecuted is to supposedly commit a grievous offense against the rule of law, because no one is above the law and the consequences of holding him or her to account shouldn’t matter.This is a powerful argument and one seemingly vindicated in the case of Mr. Trump, who has now managed to get himself ensnared in legal trouble in multiple jurisdictions dealing with a wide range of possible crimes. At a certain point, the logic of the law applying to everyone equally demands that the process be seen through.But that doesn’t mean we should deny the gravity of the potential consequences. Mr. Trump is not a standard-issue politician who happened to run afoul of corruption statutes. He’s a man who rose once to the presidency and seeks to return to it by mobilizing and enhancing mass suspicion of public institutions and officials. That’s why one of the first things he said after announcing the indictment on Thursday night was to proclaim it was “a DARK DAY for the United States of America.” It’s why die-hard supporters like Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio tweeted: “Sad day for America. God Bless President Trump.” It’s likely that tens of millions of our fellow citizens agree with the sentiment.To most Americans, such a reaction to news of Mr. Trump’s indictment seems unimaginable. But it’s clearly something sincerely felt by many. Our country has a history of lionizing outlaws — folk heroes who defy authority, especially when they claim to speak for, channel and champion the grievances and resentments of ordinary people against those in positions of power and influence. From the beginning of his 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump has portrayed himself as just such a man of defiance, eager to serve as a tribune for those who feel left behind, denigrated and humiliated by members of the establishment.That’s why the more concerted opposition Mr. Trump has faced from law enforcement, the mainstream media, Congress and other prominent people in our country and culture, the more popular he has become within his party. Efforts to rein him in — to defeat him politically and legally — have often backfired, vindicating him and his struggle in the eyes of his supporters.There’s no reason at all to suppose the prospect of Mr. Trump’s ending up a convicted criminal would disrupt this dynamic. On the contrary, it’s far more likely to transform him into something resembling a martyr to millions of Americans — and in the process to wrest those devoted supporters free from attachment to the rule of law altogether.How politically radical could the base of the Republican Party become over the 17 months between now and the 2024 presidential election? There’s really no way to know. We are heading into uncharted and turbulent waters.Damon Linker, a former columnist at The Week, writes the newsletter Notes From the Middleground and is a senior fellow in the Open Society Project at the Niskanen Center.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Unhappy Task for Trump’s GOP Rivals: Defend the Man Dominating the Polls

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      In the topsy-turvy world of 2024 Republican politics, rivals of Donald J. Trump had been bracing for weeks for his second indictment with more dread than any sense of opportunity.After years of successive scandals, the immediate instincts of so many Republican voters are thoroughly ingrained. They snap to Mr. Trump’s defense, no matter how outrageous the charges are or who is making them — Democrats, the news media, local prosecutors or, now, federal ones. Donations surged after Mr. Trump’s first indictment in Manhattan. And he consolidated support in the polls.Even prominent Republicans eager for the party to cast aside Mr. Trump in 2024 were concerned ahead of the indictment. They have long been exasperated by the immunity of Mr. Trump’s base to almost any attack or argument, swarming to neutralize any perceived political threat almost by habit.“There’s a lot of folks who just don’t buy any of it,” Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire who announced this week that he would not run for president in 2024, said in a recent interview. “Democrats are like the boy who cried wolf. ‘Oh, no, no. But this is real.’”He added, “It’s created a situation where a lot of Republican voters intuitively dismiss any criticism at the former president.”On Thursday evening, Mr. Trump’s rivals immediately faced the uncomfortable choice of joining the chorus of conservatives who quickly rallied behind Mr. Trump, or looking like they weren’t on Team G.O.P. at a moment of heightened tribal politics. Those who did speak came mostly to the defense of the candidate dominating them in the polls.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said “the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” though he did not explicitly defend Mr. Trump.Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina also decried “the weaponization of the Department of Justice” in an interview on Fox News that had been scheduled before the indictment. “You don’t have to be a Republican to see injustice,” he said.And Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur running a hard-line but long-shot candidacy, went further, pledging, “I commit to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025.”The exception was Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor clinging to the margins of the race as a bastion of old-guard Republicanism. He called for Mr. Trump to end his campaign.Most Republicans, conservative commentators and Trump allies ratcheted up pressure immediately to close ranks behind a former president facing charges that emanated from a special counsel appointed by a Justice Department that reports to President Biden. “PEAK WITCH HUNT,” blared the banner headline on Breitbart. A pro-Trump super PAC circulated supportive statements from more than 50 elected officials and conservative figures within four hours of Mr. Trump’s announcing his own indictment.“This will only cause a firestorm of support,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist who hosts the streaming “War Room” program that is popular with the party’s right-wing base, wrote in a text message. “Rivals would be wise to ‘heave-to.’”Mr. Trump raised $4 million in the first 24 hours after his last indictment. His campaign sent out its first emailed plea for cash less than 30 minutes after publicizing this one.There are longer-term questions about the political fallout from the indictment, which adds yet another piece of baggage for a now twice-impeached and twice-indicted former president. Then there is the issue of actual legal jeopardy: The specific charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.Yet on Fox News, the cable channel that serves as the information circulatory system for millions of Republican primary voters, the coverage on Thursday was almost universally aghast at the seven federal counts Mr. Trump is facing, even if the details have not been made public yet. The host Mark Levin called “June 8th, the day of insurrection, not January 6th.” Breaking-news banners and repeated segments trumpeted Democratic apostasies and scandals, from Hillary Clinton to President Biden, that did not result in prosecution.Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host, goaded Mr. Trump’s 2024 rivals to travel in solidarity to Florida, where Mr. Trump said he had been summoned to a federal courthouse next week: “Every single Republican nominee should be down in Miami on Tuesday night — standing behind — standing for justice in the country, saying ‘I may be running for president’ — Mike Pence, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, whoever, Ron DeSantis — ‘but this is injustice.’”Mr. Hegseth added, “I don’t think they have a chance now considering what Trump is up against.”Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a Republican who at times has been an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump, sounded a similar note on the same network. “I do believe tonight that Joe Biden just secured Donald Trump’s nomination for Republicans in 2024,” Ms. Mace said.The highest-ranking elected Republican in America, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, was among those who cast unifying behind Mr. Trump as beyond parochial political considerations.“I, and every American who believes in the rule of law,” Mr. McCarthy wrote on Twitter, “stand with President Trump.” More

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      Indictment Brings Trump Story Full Circle

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      The former president assailed Hillary Clinton for her handling of sensitive information. Now, the same issue threatens his chances of reclaiming the presidency.There was a time, not that long ago really, when Donald J. Trump said he cared about the sanctity of classified information. That, of course, was when his opponent was accused of jeopardizing it and it was a useful political weapon for Mr. Trump.Throughout 2016, he castigated Hillary Clinton for using a private email server instead of a secure government one. “I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information,” he declared. “No one will be above the law.” Mrs. Clinton’s cavalier handling of the sensitive information, he said, “disqualifies her from the presidency.”Seven years later, Mr. Trump faces criminal charges for endangering national security by taking classified documents when he left the White House and refusing to return all of them even after being subpoenaed. Even in the what-goes-around-comes-around department of American politics, it is rather remarkable that the issue that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place now threatens to ruin his chances of getting back there.The indictment handed up by a federal grand jury at the request of the special counsel Jack Smith effectively brings the Trump story full circle. “Lock her up,” the crowds at his campaign rallies chanted with his encouragement. Now he may be the one locked up if convicted on any of the seven reported counts that include conspiracy to obstruct justice and willful retention of documents.The indictment is the second brought against the former president in recent months, but in many ways it eclipses the first in terms of both legal gravity and political peril. The first indictment, announced in March by the Manhattan district attorney, charged Mr. Trump with falsifying business records to cover up hush money to an adult film actress who alleged that they had a sexual tryst. The second is brought by a federal prosecutor representing the nation as a whole, the first in American history against a former president, and concerns the nation’s secrets.While Mr. Trump’s defenders have tried to brush off the first as the work of a local elected Democrat concerning issues that, however unseemly, seem relatively petty and happened before he took office, the latest charges stem directly from his responsibility as the nation’s commander in chief to safeguard data that could be useful to America’s enemies.Republican voters may not care if their leader slips money to a porn star to keep quiet, but will they be indifferent about impeding authorities seeking to recover clandestine material?Perhaps. Mr. Trump certainly hopes so. The Manhattan indictment only seemed to boost his poll ratings rather than hurt him. And so he immediately cast the latest indictment as part of the most extravagant conspiracy in American history, one that in his telling seems to involve a wide range of local and federal prosecutors, grand jurors, judges, plaintiffs, regulators and witnesses who have all lied for years to set him up while he is the one truth teller, no matter what the charges.“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election,” he wrote on his social media site, making multiple misleading assertions in a single sentence. “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”So far, his core supporters have stuck with him and even some of those running against him for the Republican nomination next year have criticized the investigations against him. But he recently was found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial, his company has been found guilty of 17 counts of tax fraud and other crimes and he still faces two other possible indictments stemming from his effort to overturn his 2020 election defeat, leading to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.The question, politically at least, is whether the accumulation of all those allegations will someday weigh him down among Republican voters who otherwise like him, especially if there is a third and maybe a fourth indictment. At least some of his rivals for the party nomination are counting on the fatigue factor eventually draining his support.As for Mrs. Clinton, whether she was feeling a little schadenfreude on Thursday night, the defeated candidate herself was not saying. But she and her allies have long believed that the reopening of the email investigation by James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, just days before the 2016 election cost her the victory that so many polls had forecast.Mr. Trump will try to turn this around on his pursuers, arguing that the fact that he has been indicted where Mrs. Clinton was not is proof that he is being unfairly persecuted.Never mind that the facts of the cases are different, that he seemed to go out of his way to intentionally thwart authorities trying to recover the secret documents for months while investigators concluded that Mrs. Clinton was not willfully trying to violate the law. But it will be a useful political argument for Mr. Trump to insist that he is a victim of double standards.Why, given the 2016 campaign, he did not recognize the potential danger of mishandling classified information and take more care about it is another matter. But he spent much of his presidency disregarding concerns about the security of information and the rules about preserving government documents.He disclosed highly classified information to Russian officials visiting him in the Oval Office. He posted sensitive satellite imagery of Iran online. He kept using an unsecured mobile phone even after being told it was monitored by Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies. He tore up official documents and threw them to the floor once he was done with them despite laws requiring that they be saved and cataloged, leaving aides to collect the ripped-up pieces and tape them back together.Even when confronted with the consequences of his actions, Mr. Trump never expressed concern. He was the president, after all, and he could do what he pleased. Even during the investigation into the classified documents that he took to Mar-a-Lago, he has defended himself by asserting that he had the power to declassify anything he chose just by thinking about it.But he is no longer president. Now he will face not just primary voters who will decide whether he has been disqualified from the presidency, but a prosecutor who says he will enforce laws concerning the protection of classified information.Mr. Trump will be booked as an accused criminal and, absent an unforeseen development, ultimately will be judged by a jury of his peers.What a difference seven years makes. More

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      Here Are Some of the Charges Trump Faces in Classified Documents Case

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      A grand jury has charged former President Donald J. Trump with a total of seven counts, according to two people familiar with the indictment.While the precise details of all the charges are not yet clear, the people familiar with the matter said the charges include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and making false statements.Here is a closer look.Unauthorized retention of national security documentsIt is a crime to retain national security documents without authorization and to fail to deliver them to a government official entitled to take custody of them.To win a conviction, prosecutors would have to show that Mr. Trump knew he was still in possession of the documents after leaving the White House and failed to comply when the government asked him to return them and then subpoenaed him.Each such charged document would be a separate offense, so it is possible that prosecutors have brought as many as five counts of this offense by citing five different records. A conviction would be theoretically subject to 10 years in prison for each count, although defendants in other Espionage Act cases have received significantly less than the maximum.To obtain a conviction, prosecutors would also have to prove to the jury that the documents related to the national defense, that they were closely held and that their disclosure could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary.Although Mr. Trump has claimed — without evidence — that he declassified all the files he took to Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors would not technically need to prove that they were still classified because the Espionage Act predates the classification system and does not refer to it as an element.Conspiracy ChargesIt is a crime to agree with another person to break a law. Prosecutors would need to show that Mr. Trump and some other person had a meeting of the minds about committing a specific crime and that one of them took some step toward that goal. The penalty can be up to five years.ObstructionIt is a crime to conceal records to obstruct an official effort. Prosecutors would need to show several things, including that Mr. Trump knew he still had files that were subject to the efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration to take custody of presidential records. They would also need to be able to demonstrate that he willfully defied the Justice Department’s subpoena for files marked as classified, and that he intentionally caused his subordinates to fail to turn them all over while leading officials to believe they had complied. The penalty is up to 20 years per offense.False statementIt is a crime to make a false statement to a law enforcement officer about a fact material to the officer’s investigation. Such crimes carry a penalty of up to five years per offense.Mr. Trump is not known to have directly made substantive statements to the government, but prosecutors could charge him if they can show that he conspired with or induced another person to lie to the Justice Department about there being no further documents responsive to the subpoena.Or, if prosecutors can show that he induced his lawyers to unwittingly lie to the Justice Department, they could charge Mr. Trump directly for causing the false statement even if he himself did not commit the offense himself. The law says that “whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.”It is not known what the other charges are, but here are some possibilities:Mishandling official documentsWhether or not the documents relate to national security, it is a crime to conceal or destroy official documents. Among other disclosures, former aides to Mr. Trump have recounted how he sometimes ripped up official documents. The National Archives has also said that some of the White House paper records the Trump administration transferred to it had been torn up, including some that had been taped back together. The penalty is up to three years per offense, in addition to a ban on holding federal office, although the latter is most likely unconstitutional, legal experts say.Contempt of courtIt is a crime to willfully disobey a court order, like the grand jury subpoena Mr. Trump received in May 2022 that required him to turn over all documents marked as classified that remained in his possession. It carries a penalty of a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison. To bring this charge, prosecutors would need evidence showing he knew that he was still holding onto other files with classification markings during and after his representatives purported to comply with the subpoena. More