Donald Trump's own words come back to haunt him

In 2016, Donald Trump asserted that “no one will be above the law” as he ran for president against Hillary Clinton and attacked her use of a private email server that held classified conversations. “We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified,” Mr Trump said at one of his many campaign rallies, where he would claim his Democratic rival should be jailed over the email scandal and would lead chants of “Lock her up”. Seven years later, Mr Trump’s own words have come back to haunt him in the form of a 37-count indictment that includes charges under the Espionage Act over his handling of classified documents after he left office in January 2021. Mr Trump is due to appear in a Miami courtroom on Tuesday in an initial appearance in the federal case. Time and again in the indictment, prosecutors reference Mr Trump's own statements as they make their case that the former president “wilfully” and “knowingly” conspired to retain documents that should not have been in his possession – then lied when authorities tried to get them back. The indictment, which runs to nearly 50 pages, includes a statement Mr Trump made in 2018 when he said access to classified information was “inappropriate” after government officials leave office. “Any access granted to our nation's secrets should be in furtherance of national, not personal, interests,” he said. Prosecutors say Mr Trump stored hundreds of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after he left the White House. He kept the files haphazardly in the popular property, where thousands of guests and visitors come and go. Some sensitive documents were even kept in a bathroom – a far cry from the government “Scif” rooms where classified information is supposed to be viewed by those holding security clearances. Mr Trump has vigorously denied any wrongdoing and said that any classified documents in his possession were by rights his to hold on to because he can “declassify” anything he sees fit. But here, again, prosecutors use Mr Trump’s own comments against him, this time an audio recording in which the former president acknowledges he does not have the authority to declassify documents. “As president, I could have declassified it … Now I can’t,” Mr Trump said in a July 2021 interview with an unidentified writer and publisher, during which he allegedly showed them secret battle plans to attack an unnamed country, widely reported to be Iran . On Sunday, Mr Trump’s former attorney general William Barr weighed in on the case , saying the former president was “totally wrong” that he had any right to have the documents. “Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has,” Mr Barr said. Mr Barr said Mr Trump would be “toast” if convicted of “even half” the charges, and he blamed his former boss for making his own legal mess. He said the billionaire could have easily avoided prosecution if he had simply co-operated with the authorities as they sought the return of classified documents. Instead, he stonewalled them for more than a year. “The government acted responsibly, they gave him every opportunity to return those documents. They acted with restraint,” Mr Barr said. At the moment, Republicans have by and large rallied around their leader and opinion polls show the federal indictment has done nothing to dent Mr Trump's popularity within his own party. Mr Trump has repeatedly denounced the indictment as a case of political persecution and questioned why President Joe Biden and other officials haven’t been prosecuted after they retained classified documents upon leaving office. Mr Barr said those situations were different, as the people involved in those cases had co-operated with the National Archives when asked, whereas Mr Trump allegedly sought to obstruct justice. The indictment poses a far greater legal challenge to Mr Trump than another case in New York, where he is accused of paying hush money to an adult film star during the 2016 election. Some of the charges in the documents case carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison. Mr Trump responded to Mr Barr’s comments by calling him a “gutless pig”. He has also called the Department of Justice “thugs”, the special counsel in the case a “deranged lunatic” and Mr Biden a “criminal”, as he’s sought to blame others for his woes. But, as his own words show, perhaps Mr Trump’s greatest enemy is himself.