A jury of Trump’s political peers would never convict in the documents case.
In early June, the federal government made public a 49-page indictment targeting former president Donald Trump. Trump and his staffer Waltine “Walt” Nauta face dozens of charges related to Trump’s possession of material he took to his home at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, including a number of documents marked as classified.
While certainly not proof of Trump’s guilt of criminal conduct, the indictment nonetheless contained multiple photos and detailed conversations suggesting that Trump had documents and intended to keep them. Previously, of course, the Justice Department had released a photo of documents marked as classified arrayed on the distinctive carpet of the Mar-a-Lago Club.
And yet new polling from Marquette Law School indicates that half of Republicans don’t believe he had any such documents at his home.
As soon as you read those words, you are likely to experience a cascade of assumptions. Among the first is that this is probably to some extent insincere. Many Republicans probably believe that Trump had those documents at his house but also understand that the formal position of Trump and his allies is that this is all contrived, so their response to the poll reflects that rhetorical position more than their actual beliefs.
But, of course, there’s also the impulse to accept Trump’s explanation for what was found: that, as president, he had the power to declassify any material and that he’d done so.
This is a belief that is undermined significantly in three ways.
