Democracy on Trial!

Get the Point!

A few months ago, I ran into an old lawyer colleague of mine while having lunch in downtown Tallahassee and after exchanging pleasantries, he laughingly said, “Chuck, it seems from your blog and Facebook posts that you REALLY hate Donald Trump.”

My reply was simple: “I don't hate Trump, I hate his deeply held insecurities and his bigoted, narcissistic acts that threaten to plunge our country into deeper chaos—if not a Second Civil War.”

That said, unless you were in a Rip Van Winkle-like sleep yesterday, by now you know that former President Donald Trump was indicted in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida and is facing 37 counts alleging that he mishandled classified documents in contravention of the Espionage Act.

To be fair and balanced, we all know that former vice presidents Joe Biden and Mike Pence both were investigated for maintaining classified documents from their tenures under President Barack Obama and Mr. Trump, respectively.

But legal experts have repeatedly reminded during the Trump investigation that Biden and Pence both eagerly turned over documents mistakenly in their possession, while Trump, according to the pedantically detailed indictment, eagerly moved, hid, or suppressed documents in his possession in what can be best described as a game of cat and mouse with federal investigators.

From the Mar-a-Lago bathrooms to the backrooms near wine cellars, Donald Trump kept highly classified documents that were not his to keep in areas that any and everyone could have stumbled across and read…

For those thinking “so what” or “who cares,” it is important to note that anyone living in America should care as the documents at issue included detailed plans for U.S. homeland security, domestic nuclear weapons programs, and plans for U.S. attacks on foreign adversaries, like Iran.

To those points, prong three (3) of the indictment sums up the gravity of a private citizen (Trump) holding and sharing these documents as follows:

“…The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collections methods…”

For those who've yet to read the indictment, consider:

Folks, when it comes to foreign affairs, it doesn't get any more serious than espionage or the potential of espionage, and I literally cringed when I read Trump's own words that were transcribed from audio tapes and video surveillance of the former president showing a sensitive Pentagon battle plan during a July 2021 meeting where he loudly stated, “Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this…Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret...” Trump later told his lawyers, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes. Wouldn’t it be better if we just told (the Justice Department) we don’t have anything here?”

Upon reading the 49 page indictment, it immediately occurs to me, once again, that:

1. Donald Trump is extremely stupid, such is why I am not surprised that his two lawyers on the documents case both resigned on the same day that the indictment was unsealed as they wisely jumped off the “Trump-tanic” before it strikes a legal iceberg and slips to the murky depths of the Atlantic Ocean;

2. Donald Trump is a show off who feels the need to brag and boast about highly classified documents that he wasn't supposed to have (and certainly wasn't supposed to show to anyone lacking the proper security credentials).

3. Donald Trump and his adoring supporters refuse to accept any responsibility for his unlawful acts, as he (and they) deflect and cast blame everywhere but the source—which is Trump.

Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by the President Donald Trump in 2020, will preside over the Espionage/Documents case. I wonder how long it will take before Trump starts to diss his own personally appointed judge on social media?

Earlier, I noted my concerns about a Second Civil War and they remain legit as a number of the most extreme right wing MAGAs are already filling up social media pages and chat rooms with their desire to shed blood by “lynching” thousands of Donald Trump's detractors. I used to think that such talk was mere bluster, but I watched in real time as MAGA Men stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 with weapons and nooses at the ready and will never again doubt the sincerity of their stupidity or loyalty to a man, Trump, who clearly enjoys their anarchists ways.

As a reminder for those who consider my second Civil War fears to be hyperbolic, please remember that the first Civil War was waged because the South had convinced itself that the institution of slavery was its Constitutional and moral right to keep and expand into westward territories. It didn't matter that the majority of white citizens in America back then were against the enslavement of Black people; once the South had convinced itself that its “Peculiar Institution” of slavery was right and just, over a million white men, 90 percent or better who were too poor to even “own" an enslaved Black person, took up arms in a rebellion that cost more American lives than any war before—or since.

Similarly, the madding MAGA crowd has convinced itself that taking up the cause for Donald Trump is just, and that any means to defend him are justified to defend a man who has convinced his followers that he is the victim as opposed to what he is, which is a criminal defendant whose refusal to simply obey the law and turn those sensitive documents over now has him facing charges that could land him into a federal correctional facility for the rest of his life.

Stay tuned…