[ad_1]
The legal case of a political generation paints a disturbing picture of Donald Trump, who became the first former president to be charged with federal crimes when he appeared before a Miami judge on Tuesday.
But it’s not just the 37 counts of criminals, from violating the Espionage Act to obstruction of justice, who should be kneeling before him, praying.
The federal indictment also suggests that Trump committed seven deadly sins — things that go not to Trump’s actions but to his character and carry the risk of political condemnation.
Avarice, greed, laziness, anger, envy and pride (we’ll get to lust later) — the vices behind the allegations will be familiar to Trump’s most devoted followers in the Republican Party, those who say they are led by Bible teachings.
By allegedly hoarding high-class documents in a careless manner, blocking and harassing those who would seek their return and then displaying them to bolster his reputation, he succumbed to more low human nature.
But the extent to which devotees are blinded by their faith in him as their political patriarch will determine how costly his sins will be in the 2024 presidential race.
Trump’s legal problems, and his desire to return to the White House after four tumultuous years and defeat in 2020, show that the former president is a glutton for punishment. The accusation also leaves him looking like a glutton for secret information.
In office, Trump collected newspaper clippings, letters, photos, official documents and memorabilia, just as anyone living in the Oval Office might.
But the indictment alleges that he further stored “hundreds of types of documents” in these boxes – materials he had no legal right to possess as of 12pm on January 20, 2021, when he stopped being president.
The boxes were transported from Washington to his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., which, according to the indictment, “is not an authorized location for storage, possession, examination, display, or discussion of classified documents. .”
In May 2021, four months after he left office, the National Archives and Records Administration began demanding that Trump return the records he had.
Compliance is slow. It took until January 2022 to hand over the 15 boxes containing 197 classified records; 128 is marked “SECRET” or “TOP SECRET.”
It might have ended there, had the FBI not discovered the alleged evidence of the “concealment” and issued a subpoena ordering the return of all other classified documents.
On May 23, 2022, a greedy Trump met with two lawyers to discuss the subpoena and allegedly told them: “I don’t want anybody looking in my boxes.”
He also allegedly advised the lawyers not to cooperate with federal investigators. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
In his first months in the White House, Trump promised to “enforce all laws” to do with classified information. “No one is above the law.”
However, he does not seem to care about the security of documents in his possession after the presidency, including details of US nuclear capabilities, military attack scenarios and communications with foreign leaders.
The files were moved from the stage of a Mar-a-Lago ballroom to the estate’s business center, then to a bathroom and shower area and eventually a storage room that the indictment said “could be reached from multiple outside entrance.”
There is no more apt image for Trump’s alleged lack of care than a box of documents marked “SECRET” that was found tipped over and spilled onto the storage room floor.
A furious Trump blamed Attorney General Merrick Garland for his legal woes. He blamed Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who was in charge of the investigation. He blamed the FBI, the Justice Department and, most of all, President Joe Biden.
Hell hath no hate as the former president quipped.
“Crooked Joe and his thugs are destroying America!” read one of the many diatribe posts made to Trump’s social media followers Monday as he traveled from New Jersey to Miami.
He even took a swipe at his own former attorney general, William Barr, who called him an “empty pig” after he said that “the idea of portraying Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch is ridiculous.”
“This whole thing happened because of the reckless behavior of the president,” Barr told Fox News on Sunday.
Trump’s former national security adviser, John Bolton, added Monday on CNN that the case against Trump is “devastating.”
“This is really a rifle shot and it should be the end of Donald Trump’s political career.”
Instead, the perceived persecution and his desire for political power – which eluded him in 2020 – fueled Trump, and he wrapped his envy in a thin sheet of altruism.
“They’re going to come after you — and I’m just stopping them,” was his oft-used line, peppered with speeches to supporters as recently as this weekend.
The truth is that Trump has carefully created an inverted universe where every additional criminal case results in support for his core supporters being stabilized.
And as he fights political prosecution, he and his campaign work have included his presidential campaign and his legal defense, asking visitors to Trump’s website to “please make a contribution to stand with me today and prove that you will never surrender our country to the radical Left.”
All with the goal of returning to the White House, having been defeated by Biden last time.
Pride is considered the worst of the deadly sins, and it was pride that led to the most damning allegations against Trump — a caught-on-tape moment for the ages.
It is defined as the satisfaction derived from one’s own accomplishments. And the indictment recounts a haughty meeting Trump had with a writer, a publisher and two staff members at his golf club in New Jersey in July 2021.
He allegedly labeled a “highly confidential” document containing “secret” information pertaining to American military plans to attack an undisclosed country.
When a nervous staffer warned him about disclosing the document, Trump allegedly said: “As president I can declassify it … Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still a secret.”
A few months later, Trump also allegedly showed a classified map of an undisclosed country at a political fundraiser while admitting he shouldn’t have done so.
Lust is the only capital offense that the federal document mishandling case did not make, although it was front and center in Trump’s previous and ongoing criminal case in New York. The allegation is that he falsified business records to cover up repayment of a $130,000 hush-hush payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Trump.
Trump’s trail of alleged wrongdoing is approaching biblical proportions.
He will not be impaled on a steering wheel, however, or force-fed, cut alive, cooked in oil or thrown into a pit of snakes, as recommended in ancient times as punishment for these capital sins.
While the possible prison term, if he is found guilty, could be years away, the worst and immediate fate Trump faces is further humiliation followed by political defeat.
But even that seems unlikely at the moment. The unsealing of the federal indictment on Thursday coincided with a small bump in support for Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.
Allan Woods is a staff reporter based in Montreal for the Star. He covers global and national affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @WoodsAllanSHARE:
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Conversations are the opinions of our readers and are subject to the Code of Conduct. The Star does not endorse these opinions.
|
Sources 2/ https://www.thestar.com/news/world/analysis/2023/06/12/donald-trump-indictment-37-criminal-counts-seven-deadly-sins-and-plenty-of-miami-vice.html The mention sources can contact us to remove/changing this article |
[ad_2]