Trump’s Indictment Exposes His Threat to the Republican Brand

By Noah Rothman

Friday, June 09, 2023

 

For all my adult life, the Republican Party has associated itself with a strong national defense. That still applies today. Before the party gave up on producing a quadrennial platform statement, it highlighted the distinction between the GOP and the Democratic Party, particularly when it comes to spending on domestic entitlement programs, by insisting that preserving robust national-defense capabilities should be the No. 1 priority for all presidential administrations.

 

The federal indictment unsealed on Friday against Donald Trump suggests that, if the GOP goes all-in on his plans for defense, it will be setting that aspect of the party’s brand on fire.

 

In the 37-count indictment against Donald Trump alleging that he mishandled classified documents while misleading and obstructing the work of investigators are claims about the nature of the documents to which Trump so jealously clung:

 

The classified documents Trump stored in his boxes included 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.

 

The overclassification of sensitive documents in Washington is a problem, but few would argue that America’s “vulnerabilities” or the means by which the United States would respond to a “foreign attack” are overly classified. Nor do these documents, as they are described, sound quite like keepsake material.

 

The indictment describes and shows in photographs how poorly these documents were secured. One image shows legal boxes containing classified materials stacked on the ballroom stage at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. The indictment further alleges that Trump showed off to a well-connected guest at his club in Bedminster, N.J., “a classified map related to a military operation” while confessing to that guest that “he should not be showing it to” him. That would appear to corroborate claims that Trump reportedly made on tape regarding his failure to declassify some of the materials in his possession before he lost the powers of the presidency.

 

The Republican Party cannot be both a strong, pro-national-defense party and an organization dedicated to defending someone who so carelessly handles sensitive information directly relating to the security of the United States. The GOP will have to choose to be one or the other.