Donald Ayer

There has never been a graver test of America’s rule of law than the prosecutions of Donald Trump. He “stands alone in American history for his alleged crimes,” as Jack Smith put it in a recent court filing. No president has ever schemed for months to retain power after losing an election—and over the repeated advice of his advisers and lawyers—nor taken and concealed classified documents for many months following his return to civilian life.

Several distinguished individuals have recently expressed grave reservations about the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. Notably, they appear to have no dispute about the seriousness of his wrongdoing. Rather, their main concern is that “terrible consequences” may result, because the prosecutions “may come to be seen as political trials … and play directly into the hands of Trump and his allies.

The recent discovery of a small number of classified documents, left over from President Joe Biden’s time as vice president and found at his private office and home, has injected confusion into the public’s understanding of whether any criminal liability might be appropriate for former President Donald Trump in connection with the huge trove of classified documents found last year at Mar-a-Lago.