The editorial board of conservative news outlet The National Review expressed their shock at the revelations from Donald Trump’s recent indictment, saying that it’s impossible for anyone to read the details of the former president’s mishandling of classified documents and “not be appalled.”
“At many junctures…we’ve had occasions to point out how Donald Trump’s adversaries have twisted the law in a politically motivated effort to nail the former president,” the National Review’s editorial board wrote in a commentary published Saturday. “That said, it is impossible to read the indictment against Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and not be appalled at the way he handled classified documents as an ex-president, and responded to the attempt by federal authorities to reclaim them.”
The indictment, which was filed by special counsel Jack Smith in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida on Thursday, detailed that among the boxes moved from the White House to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence after Trump left office were classified government documents.
According to the indictment, the documents contained “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
“Once Trump was no longer president, he had no right to these materials,” the editorial board continued. “He stored them recklessly — not in a secured space that had been approved to handle classified documents, but, farcically, in places including his bedroom, a bathroom, and a ballroom.”
The editorial goes on to condemn the former President for “brush[ing] off months of demands from the National Archives and Records Administration” to return the missing documents and notes that the indictment makes clear that “Trump misled investigators about his possession of the documents and took actions to conceal them.”
Given the transcript of a conversation between Trump and a reporter that was revealed in the indictment in which he showed the journalist a document he called “highly classified,” the editorial board also argued that the indictment renders Trump’s lawyers previous painting of “an innocent case of some classified documents getting mixed up with other personal items” invalid.
“It’s clear from the conversation that he not only knew he was in possession of secret documents that were never declassified, but knowingly shared them with people who lacked the security clearance to see them,” the editorial reads.
The board continued by pointing out that although conservatives might be dissatisfied to see Trump indicted in contrast the lack of charges faced by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for using a private email server, Trump’s refusal to hand over the documents puts the former President’s case in an entirely new situation.
“It doesn’t change the fact the country wouldn’t be in this uncharted territory if Trump hadn’t taken documents he had no right to, and simply complied when asked to give them back,” the commentary concludes.
You can read the commentary in whole by clicking here.
