Guilty or trumped-up?

During his stand-up performances, British comedian Ricky Gervais likes to say that there’s no difference between fame and infamy now. He was probably thinking about Donald Trump, America’s 45th President.

On Tuesday, Trump will appear in Miami to surrender to authorities. Last week, he was charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith with 37 criminal counts for violating America’s national security and espionage laws. Each count carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. Even if he is convicted on just one count, Trump, already 76 years old, will likely spend the rest of his life in jail.

Jack Smith continues to work on a second case around Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s election win when Trump supporters attacked the Capitol building in Washington.

Cases galore

Trump has already made presidential history through infamy. He is the only President impeached twice (both times acquitted by the Senate).

He has already been criminally indicted by a New York court in the Jean Carroll sexual harassment case and is awaiting trial sometime next March. He is also defending in two other New York civil lawsuits. The chief prosecutor of Fulton County, Fani Willis, is investigating if Trump broke the law when he allegedly tried to apply pressure to overturn the 2020 Georgia election.

The Smith indictment does not charge that Trump was spying for another country, that he materially gained from holding the documents, or that America was hurt as a result.

Photos showed haphazardly-stashed boxes of sensitive materials around Trump’s residence at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, including in a ballroom, a bathroom, a shower, office space, and his bedroom. The charge is that Trump’s careless handling of this material “could” have placed America’s national security at risk.

‘Process crime’

The key word here is “could”, indicating that the violation was more of a “process crime”. America was not hurt because of Trump’s cavalier handling — but the mere possibility of injury, when a Trump guest may have wandered into the closet and peeked at the documents — is severe enough to merit an indictment.

So, what happens next? A federal district judge, Aileen Cannon, who ruled favourably for Trump last year when the FBI first raided his residence to confiscate documents, will examine the government’s charges and decide whether it is worthy of a jury trial and what evidence can be presented to the jury. Both sides will likely appeal whatever decision she makes, which means the case will ultimately land in the Supreme Court.

Trump’s defense is that Biden’s Department of Justice is unfairly targeting him to help Biden’s electoral prospects — and Biden’s own classified documents mishap or the corruption charges against his son Hunter are being ignored. [When Biden was Obama’s Vice-President, Biden unlawfully took classified documents to his Wilmington home with him.] Trump will also assert that he had the ultimate authority to declassify all documents as President. But he is also caught on tape admitting that he didn’t declassify all the documents found at his home.

Despite his legal troubles, Trump is the leading contender for the Republican nomination to challenge President Biden in next year’s general election. Polls taken after Trump was charged showed Trump’s lead over his nearest Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, widening to nearly 40 points.

Over 60 per cent of Americans feel that Trump was right to have been charged, but almost 75 per cent said politics played a big part in the charges. In a general election matchup, Trump currently beats Joe Biden by two points.

America, the world’s wealthiest and oldest democracy, increasingly looks like a banana republic.

The writer is Managing Director, Rao Advisors LLC, US

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