Trump Misses the Point
Donald Trump has long had the power to turn insignificant moments into days-long news events, but on Tuesday he managed something even more difficult: He did the reverse. The former president of the United States was arrested and arraigned on 37 felony charges, and it felt like an anti-climax.
Several factors explain this. The potent and precise indictment, covering Trump’s attempt to conceal highly sensitive national-security documents, was unsealed on Friday, so no new information emerged today. Despite fears of some observers about violence or disruption, Trump came and went from a federal courthouse in Miami without serious incident. Americans have become so accustomed to a circus following Trump everywhere he goes that anything else is a surprise. Television networks aired wall-to-wall coverage of … well, what, exactly? Cameras and recordings weren’t allowed in the courtroom where he was arraigned, and Trump himself was barely seen on his way in and out.
[David A. Graham: The stupidest crimes imaginable]
Moreover, although these charges are more perilous than one filed in Manhattan, this isn’t the first time Trump has been indicted, and the idea that he would face charges—that a major presidential candidate would be facing so many legal troubles—has somehow become the new normal.
That left a Trump speech in New Jersey Tuesday evening as the ostensible marquee event—his first public remarks since he revealed last week that he’d been indicted. Yet this, too, ended up being a bit of a letdown, or at least a misdirection. Trump had lots of fiery rhetoric, but for all the heat, it shed little light on the case: what the legal issues are, or why Trump was so determined not to comply with the federal government’s requests to return records that did not belong to him.
“Today we witnessed the most evil and heinous abuse of power in the history of our country,” Trump said at the start of his speech, a bold claim that would come as news to any student of history, including graduates of middle-school social-studies classes outside of Florida. Things did not get better, or more factually based, from there. Only a fool would have expected a chastened Trump, and the fool would have been disappointed.
[David A. Graham: This indictment is different]
Trump blamed his prosecution on Joe Biden, whom he labeled “the most corrupt president” in U.S. history. There’s no evidence Biden had any role in the case, and the White House has said the president found out about the indictment only after Trump broke the news. Biden has carefully remained mum on the case since, though he no doubt relishes the charges against a rival whom he has criticized as a threat to U.S. democracy.
Trump also attacked Special Counsel Jack Smith, whom he said (without evidence) was “a raging and uncontrolled Trump hater.” Trump added, “I’ve named him ‘Deranged Jack Smith.’” The ad hominem attack demonstrates both how his nickname game has weakened and perhaps also why he struggles to hire and keep attorneys.
But most of the president’s speech skirted any kind of real engagement with the charges against him. His central point was that he had the right to possess the documents he did under the Presidential Records Act, and that as president he had the power to declassify them. These arguments are neither new nor relevant. Trump has used them since the Mar-a-Lago search, though he has provided no evidence for declassification.
[Tom Nichols: The United States v. Donald Trump]
The problem for Trump that his indictment sidesteps these matters. Trump complained that the charges never mentioned the Presidential Records Act, and he is correct: It doesn’t engage with the question of whether he had a right to possess the documents. Instead, all of the charges focus on his actions after a May 2022 subpoena to return them. Once that request was made, he allegedly went to great lengths to hide documents from the federal government and even from his own attorneys, and this is where Smith homed in.
Following Trump’s explanations was also difficult for anyone who isn’t immersed in the right-wing discourse. He served up a conspiratorial word salad, tossing together the Clinton socks case and acid-washing and Burisma. The former president did offer a partial answer to the greatest mystery of the case: Why was Trump so determined to keep the documents?
“Many people have asked me why I had these boxes,” he said. “The answer, besides having every right under the Presidential Records Act, is these boxes were containing all types of personal belongings,” including shirts and shoes. But chaotic storage is no excuse for violation of the law, and it hardly explains his dogged attempts—detailed by his own attorney—to avoid handing over documents such as military attack plans.
Once liable to start speaking and continue for a couple hours, Trump has been more concise in some of his recent speeches. As he wrapped up Tuesday, after just 30 minutes, he complained that the Justice Department had broken an unwritten rule against prosecuting a former president and current presidential candidate. The risks of letting Trump continue to flout the law with impunity arguably outweigh the downsides, but the indictment does carry risks.
“You just don’t, unless it’s really bad,” Trump said. He had unwittingly delivered the most illuminating commentary of the day.