By: Phoebe Huang
Trump’s indictment accuses him of 37 crimes. The crimes, each a violation of The Espionage Act, center around the retention of national defense information. He is the first president to be formally charged with violating the laws that he swore to uphold 6 years ago. The charges involve *concealing documents and making false claims and statements to law enforcement authorities. The potential sentence for these crimes adds up to 420 years, though convictions tend to never reach the maximum sentence. This indictment confronts the country with an abominable fact: a president that we elected failed to promote the laws.
Even still, Trump is planning to run for president. He and his supporters are trying their best to defend his reputation, asserting that the charges were issued by 3 normal residents of South Florida who were trying to take down Joe Biden’s rival. But the contradicting evidence collected by the government was so hefty that the Judicial branch felt the need to indict Trump.
The evidence suggests that Trump not only took classified documents from the White House but also showed them to visitors at his country clubs. One of the documents involved a potential attack on another country, reportedly Iran. Trump acknowledged it was a government secret, but had shared it, going against his word.
His recklessness in showing off military secrets put American soldiers’ lives at risk. These secrets were some of the country’s most classified information - information that many top-ranking authorities aren’t authorized to view- and Trump treated them like a winning lottery ticket. This was completely unnecessary and didn't help with any propaganda.
This is the first time that a president has been accused of a crime, but the American government will prosecute anyone who doesn’t comply with the law to protect their citizens.
Lady Dr. Jill Biden commented on the incident saying, “My heart feels so broken by a lot of the headlines that we see on the news. Like I just saw, when I was on my plane, it said 61% of Republicans are going to vote, they would vote for Trump.” To fail to do the right thing would create an abuse of power. The government is reaffirming that no one risks harm, and everyone is doing their job correctly.