John Cassidy: The People Versus Donald J. Trump

In a sixteen-page indictment, The People of the State of New York Against Donald J. Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Bragg’s office accused the former President of Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree in violation of Penal Law §175.10—a New York statute—thirty-four times between February and December of 2017. The charges all relate to payments Trump made to Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, who, just before the election in 2016, had quietly paid off Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress who claimed to have had an affair with Trump. (Trump denies this latter allegation.) For each of the thirty-four counts, the indictment accused Trump of acting with intent to defraud and intent to commit another crime and aid and conceal the commission thereof. Under New York law, intent to break another law is necessary to charge falsifying business records as a felony rather than a misdemeanor.

With Trump facing the possibility of more serious criminal charges elsewhere, the New York case could turn into a sideshow. In Fulton County, Georgia, the district attorney, Fani Willis, is investigating the efforts of Trump and his associates to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state. In Washington, D.C., a special counsel is looking into Trump’s actions following the 2020 election and into his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office. Whatever happens in those investigations, though, Tuesday’s criminal indictment marks a low—for him and for the office of the Presidency. https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-people-versus-donald-j-trump

Susan B. Glasser: America’s First Indicted Ex-President Is Very Sorry—for Himself

By the time Donald Trump marched out from behind a phalanx of American flags and emerged into the gilded Mar-a-Lago ballroom to speak to cheering supporters on Tuesday night, America’s first indicted ex-President hardly seemed chastened by his historic day as a defendant in a Manhattan courtroom. He told the crowd that prosecutors investigating him were racist or lunatic. He criticized the judge in his case. He criticized the judge’s daughter. He lied about matters large and small, and expounded at length on everything from Russia, Russia, Russia to Hunter Biden’s laptop from Hell. He even attacked the National Archives and Records Administration as a radical-left troublemaking organization.

Indicted and Arraigned Trump, in other words, turned out to be just like his most recent previous incarnation, Impeached and Defeated Trump: a rambling, unrepentant grievance machine so beloved by his superfans in the Republican Party that he remains the front-runner for the G.O.P. nomination in 2024, even after everything.

In the meantime, Bragg’s filing of the charges has had an electrifying effect on Trump’s reëlection campaign, offering the ex-President a new grievance to fuel his comeback bid at just the moment when he needs something to galvanize his effort and distract the Republican Party from the growing concerns about his losing record. The short-term boon is real, if possibly quite temporary: since news of the case broke, polls have shown Trump with his biggest leads in the G.O.P. primary so far, and even Trump-skeptical Republicans, such as Mitt Romney, found themselves leaping to his defense against what they insist is a politically motivated prosecution.

None of this may matter several months from now. Trump faces far more serious potential prosecutions in cases involving his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his possession at Mar-a-Lago of classified documents from his Presidency. If charges are forthcoming in any of those investigations, Manhattan indictment No. 71543-23 may end up as little more than a footnote to history, the first but not the last time that a prosecutor dared to call a former President a crook in a court of law. But what a footnote it will be. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/americas-first-indicted-ex-president-is-very-sorry-for-himself

David Graham: He’s Back

David Graham: Donald Trump is back—or at least, the 2016 version of Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail, just hours after he was arrested and arraigned in a New York court earlier today.

The former president has become no more honest and no less irritable since leaving office in disgrace in 2021, but the man who has been campaigning for president these past few months has been a diminished version of himself. Oh, he’s still full of vitriol, and the man doesn’t seem to visibly age, but his heart hasn’t been in it, and he has slipped from the center of the political conversation. He was tired.

That’s the man who appeared in court in Manhattan today for his unprecedented arraignment: subdued, silent, and maybe even looking a little scared. But by the time Trump took the dais at Mar-a-Lago tonight, he seemed to have stepped back in time eight years. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/trump-indictment-speech-mar-a-lago/673618/

George Will: Maybe, just maybe, this is rock bottom for embarrassing U.S. politics

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is defining himself before his rivals can define him, but not to his advantage. He seems intelligent but unpleasant, forthright but prickly, accomplished but incapable of political grace notes. He also seems tightly scripted — perhaps for good reasons.

His unforced errors include describing Russia’s war of annihilation against Ukraine as a ‘territorial dispute.’ And backing a ban on abortion after six weeks, which is before women often know they are pregnant. (Is he trying to forfeit the female vote in suburbia, where the 2024 election might be decided?) And vowing, unintelligibly (see the Constitution’s Article IV, Section 2), that he will ‘not assist’ any extradition of Trump from Florida.

‘In politics as in baseball, at which the young DeSantis excelled, ‘AAAA players’ are those who excel in AAA ball, the highest minor league, but fail above that. A presidential campaign is a rigorous apprenticeship that DeSantis, although still not an announced candidate, is, less than a mile into the marathon, flunking. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/04/trump-indictment-presidential-election-george-will/

Catherine Rampell: The GOP has no idea what it wants on the budget, but it’s definitely not that

How do you negotiate with someone who has no idea what they want?

That’s the challenge for President Biden as Republicans say he must (A) satisfy their fiscal demands before they’ll raise the debt limit; even though they (B) can’t decide what those demands actually are; and they (C) have zero credibility for delivering 218 House votes for whatever those demands eventually turn out to be.

Republicans were fine with the last president signing $4.7 trillion in new deficits into law even before covid-19 hit (plus trillions more thereafter). Now that a Democrat is president, though, the GOP’s born-again deficit hawks decided that Something Must Be Done about the nation’s fiscal health.

It’s not clear what Something is, however, beyond taking a valuable hostage: the nation’s debt ceiling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/04/04/republican-debt-demands-nonexistent-elusive/

Matthew Chapman: Trump dusts off 'racist' 1980s tactics to intimidate Manhattan prosecutors

As the criminal case against former President Donald Trump's alleged $130,000 hush payment to Stormy Daniels unfolds in New York, the accused has resorted to white supremacist intimidation tactics he perfected in the 1980s to try to intimidate Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, wrote Symone D. Sanders for MSNBC on Tuesday.

"Trump has called Bragg an animal, and he warned of 'death and destruction' from his supporters if he was indicted on charges related to the hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels," wrote Sanders. "He posted a now-deleted image of himself holding a baseball bat positioned next to a picture of Bragg’s head.

”The racist and escalatory rhetoric Trump is using to speak about Bragg isn’t just business as usual, nor mere political rhetoric. It is serious. Bragg has reportedly received at least one death threat (among hundreds of other threats) in the form of a package that was mailed to his office. The package contained a note that said 'Alvin — I’ll kill you.’ https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2659735387/

David Frum: Never Again Trump

Many prominent Republicans want Trump gone. But they are caught in a trap of their own bad faith: They want prosecutors to do for them the job they are too scared and broken to do for themselves. But they also, for their own crass political advantage, want to pretend to be on Trump’s side during the prosecution—while inwardly cheering on the prosecutors.

Bad faith is a coward’s method, and these bad-faith Republicans are earning the coward’s reward. They hope that the legal system will rescue them from their own humiliating submission, but they are acting to deliver the Republican nomination to Trump for a third time. If Trump does win the nomination, they’ll submit again.

When Trump ran for president in 2016, he at least paid lip service to issues Republican voters cared about: immigration, opioid addiction, trade disparities, and so on. The corruption, authoritarianism, and incitements to violence were present even then, of course. And they continued. In 2020, ABC News counted 54 instances in which people who committed or plotted violence specifically cited Trump’s words as their motive or their justification.

This time, however, Trump is offering no lip service. On his social media and in his opening-rally speech in Waco, Texas, on March 25, Trump has celebrated and justified the deadly events of January 6, 2021. On Truth Social, he predicted “death & destruction” when he was indicted. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/trump-indictment-gop-desantis/673589/

Jonathan Last: What If DeSantis Doesn’t Run?

For starters, it means that all of the questions about Biden running stop. If DeSantis pulls the plug, Trump becomes the overwhelming favorite—at which point there is zero chance that Biden declines to run for reelect.

The next thing that happens is Trump pops higher in both national and early-state polls. That’s because Trump is the second choice of about half of the voters who support DeSantis. Which means that you’d expect Trump to almost immediately add >10 points to his poll numbers, putting him close to the 60 percent mark nationally.

Then comes the time for fear.

The Republican establishment, which has been pushing DeSantis relentlessly for two years, would freak the eff out. They’d look around and see that Nikki Haley has moved backwards since declaring her candidacy. Mike Pompeo seems to have disappeared. Maybe Chris Christie is in the race sitting at 3 percent. The point is: No declared Republican candidate will have demonstrated viability.

So the money will go searching for someone who has upside potential. https://thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/what-if-desantis-doesnt-run

Amanda Carpenter: Why Does DeSantis Keep Letting Trump Take Shots at Him?

How many times can you let someone punch you before everyone else thinks you’re a sucker?

Ron DeSantis is about to find out.

Donald Trump has disgustingly smeared DeSantis on social media, gone after DeSantis at his presidential campaign rally in Waco on Saturday, and used a primetime interview on Fox News on Monday to question DeSantis’s ability to win Florida without his help.

So far, DeSantis has accepted it all as if he were being initiated into the 2024 race with a ‘Thank you, sir, may I have another?’ plastered-on smile. https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/desantis-keeps-letting-trump-take

Michael Hiltzik: How Disney’s lawyers brutally mauled DeSantis over control of Disney World

Did you really believe that Florida’s arrogant Gov. Ron DeSantis would get the better of Walt Disney Co. in their fight over Disney’s supposed “wokeness”?

If so, you don’t know your Disney.

DeSantis handpicked a board of cronies to take over control of Reedy Creek Improvement District — the quasi-governmental entity that Disney and Florida established more than 55 years ago to control development and management of the land on which Walt Disney World,

DeSantis’ board has now revealed that, while they were snoozing, Disney executed an agreement with their predecessors that strips the new board of all its powers except the authority to “maintain the roads and maintain basic infrastructure,” according to one of the new board members.

Hilariously, the agreement Disney reached will remain in effect at least until 21 years “after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England,” currently living.
Here’s the rub. Days before the takeover, Disney reached a development agreement with the old Reedy Creek board while it was still in power. The agreement prohibits the newly constituted district from using the name “Disney” or its trademarks — specifically including Mickey Mouse — in any way without the company’s written permission. The agreement also leaves the new board without the ability to make design changes to buildings or constructing new ones without Disney’s permission.

Using the British royal family as a touchstone for the term of a trust became a tradition in the 19th century, when the typical life span ran to the 30s or 40s except for royals, who were presumed to receive healthcare that kept them alive longer. Also, royal families were the only ones that kept accurate and detailed genealogical records, so tracing descendants was relatively easy.

All this has reduced the DeSantis camp to fulminating powerlessly. The governor’s office called Disney’s move a “last-ditch” effort that may have “significant legal infirmities” that would render it “void as a matter of law.” Disney says all T’s were crossed and I’s dotted in accordance with the law.

Who’s got the upper hand? A multinational corporation intent on protecting franchises that bring it more than $80 billion a year has thus far made its adversary look like a blustering nincompoop.. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2023-03-30/disneys-lawyers-outmaneuvered-desantis-control-disney-world

Peter Baker: A President Faces Prosecution, and a Democracy Is Tested

For the first time in American history, a former president of the United States has been indicted on criminal charges. It is worth pausing to repeat that: An American president has been indicted for a crime for the first time in history.

So many unthinkable firsts have occurred since Donald J. Trump was elected to the White House in 2016, so many inviolable lines have been crossed, so many unimaginable events have shocked the world that it is easy to lose sight of just how astonishing this particular moment really is.

For all of the focus on the tawdry details of the case or its novel legal theory or its political impact, the larger story is of a country heading down a road it has never traveled before, one fraught with profound consequences for the health of the world’s oldest democracy. For more than two centuries, presidents have been held on a pedestal, even the ones swathed in scandal, declared immune from prosecution while in office and, effectively, even afterward.

No longer. That taboo has been broken. A new precedent has been set. Will it tear the country apart, as some feared about putting a former president on trial after Watergate? Will it be seen by many at home and abroad as victor’s justice akin to developing nations where former leaders are imprisoned by their successors? Or will it become a moment of reckoning, a sign that even someone who was once the most powerful person on the planet is not above the law? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/30/us/politics/trump-indictment-democracy.html

Paul Rosenzweig: Trump’s Attorneys and the Crimes They Enabled

It’s rare that a court breaks attorney-client privilege, even rarer that the reason is that the lawyer was wittingly or unwittingly contributing to a crime or fraud, and rarer still that it happens twice to the same guy. Yet, for the second time, a federal judge has invoked a doctrine known as the “crime-fraud exception” to force one of Donald Trump’s attorneys to give evidence against him. The first was when Judge David Carter ordered John Eastman to turn over evidence of his conversations with Trump about the attempted coup on January 6, 2021. The second was on March 17, when Judge Beryl Howell told attorney Evan Corcoran that he had to provide evidence about Trump’s obstruction of justice in refusing to return classified national security documents stored at Mar-a-Lago. Though these latter proceedings remain sealed, public reports suggest that Trump deliberately misled his lawyer. He is said to have lied to Corcoran about the completeness of his search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago—a lie that Corcoran then dutifully passed along to the government as the truth.

When a court invokes the crime-fraud exception, they have necessarily concluded that the prosecutor has made a prima facie showing that the client (in this case, Trump) has committed criminal violations and either: a) the lawyer participated in the crime with the client; or b) the lawyer’s legal advice and services were used by his client to commit a crime unbeknownst to the lawyer. That by itself is significant. https://www.thebulwark.com/trumps-attorneys-and-the-crimes-they-enabled/

Tom Nichols: What Donald Trump’s Indictment Reveals

Trump, like the Republican opportunists who cling to him like remoras under a shark, doesn’t care about shame—he cares about getting away with it. Indeed, rather than leaving the public arena, Trump has reveled in it all, rolling around in the garbage of his own life and grunting happily about how the rules don’t apply to the real elites like him. Forget about Richard Nixon, who publicly resigned; Trump isn’t even Spiro Agnew, a man who seethed with rage at the felony corruption charges against him but had the sense not to brag about them. (Agnew insisted on his innocence for two months and then took a plea of “no contest” to a single tax-evasion charge, after which he mostly vanished from public view.)

No such luck this time. Win or lose in court, Trump is determined to bring us all into a summer-heat dumpster with him for as long as he can. And that leads to the last and most shocking thing about today’s news: Late this afternoon, New York local media reported that security was tightening up in certain areas of the city. That’s how we knew something was coming: The former president had already told us that he fully intended to trigger violence if the institutions of the law tried to touch him.

We no longer even blink when New York, a city scarred by multiple terror attacks against its innocent citizens, has to go on alert just to charge Trump with a crime. That one fact, more than any other, tells you how far down the long slide into vice and venality—and violence—Trump has dragged this country.

Every defendant, including Donald Trump, deserves the presumption of innocence. But when it comes to our civic and political innocence, Americans long ago lost whatever is left of ours. https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/donald-trump-indicted/673577/

David Remnick: An American Tragedy, Act III

The indictment of the former President by a Manhattan grand jury begins a perilous new phase of the Trump saga.

Former President Donald Trump, twice impeached, yet impervious to shame, was indicted Thursday on criminal charges related to the payment of hush money to a porn star. There was a time in American history, almost impossible to recollect now, when such a sentence, such a plot point, would have been beyond our imagining. That has not been the case for a very long time.

In early 2016, the ascent of such a clownish demagogue, a sleazy real-estate hustler who had only begun to reveal the full depths of his bigotry and authoritarian impulses, was a laugh line. At the time of his last State of the Union address, Barack Obama gave an airily confident interview to Matt Lauer, of NBC, asserting that the “overwhelming majority” of the electorate would see through Trump’s “simplistic solutions and scapegoating” and elect Hillary Clinton. Lauer pressed Obama: “In no part of your mind and brain can you imagine Donald Trump standing up one day and delivering the State of the Union address?”

Trump is, if anything, more unhinged than he was in his final days in the White House. At the recent CPAC convention his speech had a quality of wildness that made the ranting nativism of his 2016 inaugural seem as mild as the murmurings of Martin Van Buren or Warren G. Harding. As you read, remember this is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination:

The indictment in New York will deepen the conviction among some loyalists that Trump is a victim of the “deep state” and even more deserving of their devotions than before. Trump, of course, does not care what bonfire he lights. “For those who have been wronged and betrayed,” he said recently, “I am your retribution.” Trump is practically promising trouble. Any judge who encounters him in court—in New York or beyond—will be hard-pressed to prevent the former President from issuing threats of violence.

So, yes, many of Trump’s most ardent supporters will be enraged by this indictment and any others. There is no telling if that will lead to trouble in the streets. But will it win Trump back the Presidency? Will his getting arrested in the middle of a national campaign really win back suburban voters and independents who voted for him in 2016 but abandoned him in 2020 for Joe Biden? How many voters will say, in effect, Yes, I was deeply embarrassed and ashamed by the spectacle of January 6th, but now having seen Donald Trump in the dock and hearing the resonant phrases “porn star,” “catch and kill,” and “hush money”—much less “incitement to insurrection” and “election fraud”—I am summoned back to the maga fold? Once more, the American political imagination reels and the stakes for American democracy could not be higher. https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/an-american-tragedy-act-iii

Dana Milbank: The GOP response to Trump is one hell of an indictment

It’s no surprise that House Republicans leaped to Donald Trump’s defense after news of his indictment broke late Thursday. What was striking, though, was how many elected GOP officials now sound like Trump.

“Political Persecution,” Trump alleged in his statement.

“Political persecution,” parroted Reps. Diana Harshbarger (Tenn.), Josh Brecheen (Okla.), Claudia Tenney (N.Y.), and Paul Gosar (Ariz.).

“Blatant Election Interference,” Trump announced.

“This is unprecedented election interference,” echoed GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.).

“An attempt to interfere in our Presidential election,” echoed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

“Witch hunt,” complained Trump.

“Witch hunt,” repeated Reps. George Santos (N.Y.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.) and more, including House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (Minn.).

“Weaponizing our justice system,” Trump inveighed.

“Weaponizing,” chorused Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Reps. David Rouzer (N.C.), Austin Scott (Ga.), Rich McCormick (Ga.) and more.

Trump blamed George Soros. Reps. Wesley Hunt (TX), Mike Johnson (LA), Harshbarger, Gosar and Sens. Rick Scott (FL) and Ron Johnson (WIS) blamed Soros.

They aped Trump in other ways, too.

In their vulgarity:

“Enough of this witch hunt bulls---,” tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA)

“This is complete and utter bulls---,” asserted Rep. Brian Mast (FL).

In using ALL CAPS:

“WITCH HUNT!” screamed Rep. Ronny Jackson (TX) and “Alvin Bragg is a NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT.”

In demanding vengeance: “Hunter Biden: Call your lawyers,” suggested Rep. Darrell Issa (CA).

“The House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account,” declared McCarthy.

“When Trump wins, THESE PEOPLE WILL PAY!!” tweeted Jackson.

In voicing deep-state conspiracy theories: “The Regime occupying our country and systematically killing America is most afraid of President Donald J. Trump,” warned Gosar.

And in stoking paranoia among the unstable:

“If they can come for him, they can come for anyone,” tweeted Rep. Andy Biggs (AZ).

The Republicans’ mimicry (conscious or unconscious) of Trump should put one thing into sharper focus. The debate about whether this helps or hurts Trump’s fight for the GOP nomination is beside the point. When it comes to any would-be Republican standard-bearer, the mantra is clear: We are all Trumpians now. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/31/house-gop-debates-public-urination/

Michael M. Grynbaum: Welcome Back to The Trump Show

The indictment of former President Donald J. Trump is an unprecedented political event that may have enormous consequences for democracy.

It’s also, effectively, a season premiere.

After a brief hiatus, The Trump Show is back. Americans, ready or not, are now along for another roller-coaster ride with a protagonist whose pre-eminence in the media universe had begun to fade.

Banned from Twitter, Mr. Trump’s outbursts and grievances had stopped shaping the news cycle. Out of office, he became inherently less newsworthy. He even vanished from Fox News, his usual television home, for about four months beginning in November.

Now Mr. Trump has well and truly returned. He turned up on “Hannity” this week, railing against the “fake news” media. His posts on Truth Social, usually ignored in day-to-day political coverage, are circulating widely in the press. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, after gaining some momentum with Fox News pundits and Republican leaders, is temporarily off the collective front page. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/business/media/trump-indictment-media.html

David Lauter: The GOP made a devil’s bargain with Trump; the bill is coming due

Nearly seven years ago, the GOP made what many party officials privately called a devil’s bargain with Donald Trump. The bill just came due.

It’s not possible yet to assess the strength of Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump. The investigation was known to involve hush money payments to a porn star to cover up an alleged affair, but its full dimensions and the precise charges on which a New York grand jury indicted the former president Thursday afternoon remain under seal and may not be known until his arraignment, scheduled for Tuesday.

Nor is there much point in trying to guess the impact on a general election that remains more than 19 months — and perhaps several indictments — in the future.

But what is clear is that Republicans now face what may be a worst-case scenario: For at least some time, the front-runner for their nomination will be campaigning while facing criminal charges. That’s likely to strengthen him in the eyes of a significant share of the party’s voters even as a majority of Americans view it as disqualifying.

If Trump wins the nomination, the party’s fate could be lashed to the outcome of a criminal trial. If he loses, the indictment will give him every incentive to once again cry foul and denounce whoever beat him. https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2023-03-31/the-gop-made-a-devils-bargain-with-trump-the-bill-is-coming-due-essential-politics

Jonathan Chait: Take Your Eye Off Jack Smith

Manhattan, as always, likes to take the glory. But Washington is where the real power resides.

Donald Trump knows that—there’s a reason he left New York to go into politics. It’s also a good way to think about the news around Trump this week. The eyes of the world will be on Manhattan, where the former president was arraigned. But the clearest threat to Trump is quietly still the one posed by the Justice Department’s investigation into his handling of classified documents.

The strength of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case, which public evidence suggests relates to the 2016 payment of hush money to the adult-film actor Stormy Daniels, is unclear. Some legal observers worry that the case depends too much on novel or tenuous legal theories. But even if it is strong, it is an odd (and old) footnote to Trump’s worst behavior once he was elected president.

The documents matter is different. Unlike the DOJ probe into Trump’s attempts to steal the 2020 election (which, like the documents investigation, is being run by Special Counsel Jack Smith) or an investigation into the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, it does not cut straight to Trump’s worst damage to American democracy. Yet absconding with presidential records is a crime that only a high-ranking official like the president could commit. Beyond that, the case has long appeared to be the most straightforward to prosecute, as I explained in January. The law is simple, and the general outline is clear: Trump took the documents, and he refused to give them back when asked.

Smith’s probe has perhaps gotten less attention than the others because, like Robert Mueller before him, he has overseen an investigation with few leaks. Mueller, too, ended up zeroing in on obstruction, and provided clear evidence that Trump had obstructed justice—though he refused to say so plainly or bring charges, citing DOJ guidance against indicting a sitting president. Smith faces no such procedural hurdle.

At the time of the Mueller probe, Trump’s defenders took to writing off any instances of obstruction as mere “process crimes,” as though some crimes are somehow not really crimes. Often, prosecutors do bring obstruction charges when the act impedes prosecuting an underlying crime. But in this case, obstruction is not just an effort to avoid prosecution; it’s a perpetuation of the crime itself—keeping the documents. Smith has an opportunity to recognize that and act where the previous special counsel couldn’t or wouldn’t. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/mar-a-lago-classified-documents-trump-indictment/673605/