37 counts

A democratic society such as our own, I think, is anchored to an idealistic mooring.

By that, I mean it's a society that we truly aspire to be: honest, caring, peaceful, thoughtful, secure. As such, we gave ourselves guidelines to follow, and labeled the document the Constitution of the United States. In the government that we set up for ourselves, our elected, military and law enforcement officials take an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution in order to help us continue our pursuit of happiness as we try to make this nation a more perfect union.

They take an oath to an ideal, not to an individual.

Since perfection can never be attained (except in baseball. You can have a perfect game in baseball), our quest for national perfection is called an experiment, because the quest is ongoing. It's never ending.

That's why this week's 37-count indictment of former president Donald Trump is so shocking, even when we knew it was coming. Never in the 234 years of our government (going back to 1789, when the Constitution was adopted) have we seen this. Maybe we've been lucky in our experiment up to this point.

But the Grand Jury (not President Joe Biden, as many Republicans wrongfully insist) that indicted Trump determined that there were 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information. This means that those hundreds of boxes of the nation's secret documents (that we know of), which should never have been removed from the end of Trump's term in the White House, should be returned to the National Archives.

All Trump had to do was return them, like Biden did when it was learned he inadvertently had acquired top secret documents, or like former Vice President Mike Pence did when it was learned he, too, had inadvertently taken possession of secret documents. Oops, my bad. Here, take them back. Please.

Not Trump. For some reason, he arrogantly thinks the documents are his. So he is stubbornly keeping them. Willful retention, under the law. 

It got him an indictment ... after 18 months of pleading by the FBI and the Department of Justice to get them back. 

All this was avoidable if he had returned the documents. Instead, he is being charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. If guilty, he becomes a traitor. He's already been found liable for sexual assault, which essentially makes him a sexual predator.

We now know that at least two unauthorized persons have seen the documents, some of which include top military secrets, some of which include nuclear secrets, some of which include government secrets. It's phenomenal that this is where we are in our ideal quest for a more perfect government.

In addition to those 31 counts, there is one count of making false statements, one count of conspiracy to obstruct (with cohort Walt Nauta, who Trump ordered to move the boxes at Mar-a-Lago to hide, believe it or not, from his own lawyers. Two of his lawyers quit on the day of the indictments. He's shedding lawyers like a dog sheds fleas); one count of withholding a document; one count of corruptly concealing a document or record; one count of concealing a document in a Federal investigation, and one count of a scheme to conceal.

Sweet Jesus. And to think that this guy – already a court-approved sexual predator – is considered by his Republican base to be one of our nation's best presidents. Can you believe it?

The evidence that special prosecutor Jack Smith has discovered appears to be overwhelming: audio tapes with Trump's own voice, videotapes, testimony from nearly everybody or worked or set foot in Mar-a-Lago could be damning for Trump. 

The fact that Trump did not return the documents makes him a security threat of the highest order. It also makes him a fool with one of the lowest political IQs in national memory, if not in our national history.

And just think: there are indictments looming in Washington D.C. for Trump's actions during the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as indictments in Georgia for his actions in meddling with the 2020 elections asking for more votes.

It's astounding that the Republican Party still bows to this guy and rushes to his defense, as if this were the ideal government of which we are seeking. As if he were above the law.

Two indictments (so far). Two impeachments. He's already a confirmed national embarrassment.