DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Donald Trump’s chances of returning to the White House are bleak

The sweeping charges against Donald Trump for his handling of top-secret official documents marks a landmark episode in American political history.

Trump’s career has been fraught with legal challenges, but never before has a former president been indicted for crimes at the federal level.

In fact, the seven charges against Trump – including obstruction of justice and willful withholding of national defense information – are so serious that he faces a theoretical 100-year prison sentence.

While unlikely, the apparent strength of the case against him is a blow to his ailing reputation and chances of retaking the White House.

Trump’s ugly past is catching up with him, and while some of his defense attorneys have argued that the case against him amounts to nothing more than faulty filing or disorganization, nothing could be further from the truth.

Trump’s career has been fraught with legal challenges, but never before has a former president been indicted for crimes at the federal level

The seven counts against Trump include obstruction of justice and willful withholding of national defense information, and could theoretically see him serving a 100-year sentence

Eventually, other top US leaders, including Presidents Obama and Biden, kept classified documents but evaded prosecution by turning them in as soon as they were discovered

Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence also had classified documents, but like Obama and Biden, he escaped prosecution because he released them immediately after they were found

Trump was filmed boasting that he had in his hands a plan for an invasion of Iran drawn up by General Mark Milley, the US military chief of staff (pictured).

Eventually, other top US leaders, including Presidents Obama and Biden, and former Vice President Mike Pence, kept secret documents but evaded prosecution by giving them up as soon as they were discovered. The key difference is that Trump, through his attorneys, has denied that documents were kept at his Florida resort town of Mar-a-Largo.

And what a treasure – 11,000 documents, many classified as top secret, detailing US agents abroad.

Trump clearly knew he shouldn’t have kept this material. This emerges from a secret tape recording of a meeting at which he boasted that he had in his hands a plan for an invasion of Iran drawn up by General Mark Milley, the US military chief of staff.

In it, Trump says he can’t show it to anyone because of the national security implications. So he was obviously aware of the sensitivity of the documentation.

Equally distressing was his apology that he couldn’t return some of the files because they had been damaged in a flood – the very excuse he used when New York authorities were investigating him over the financial dealings of a Hyatt hotel.

Trump’s prospects are bleak. He faces a world-class law enforcement team led by the tireless Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose thoroughness is reflected in the way he made sure every maid and cleaner in Mar-a-Lago was questioned under oath, so they were unable to change their story when the case came to trial. Trump also suffered a devastating setback when his attorneys lost their right to invoke attorney-client privilege for providing false information about the classified material to the Justice Department. Your testimony will now form part of the indictment.

There are other problems for Trump. One is that the charges were filed in Miami and not Washington DC, where there would have been scope for endless bickering over jurisdiction.

The judge will also be on the lookout for “wrestlers” on the jury who have lied about their motivations and allegiances in hopes of reaching a biased verdict in Trump’s favour.

Unlike the UK, where majority voting is accepted, a US jury’s decision must be unanimous. But there will likely be four alternate judges, each willing to replace a politically motivated troublemaker.

Trump’s usual tactic in legal action is to delay, delay, and delay. In that case, he might hope to delay the process until the formal end of the US presidential campaign, but that would do no good.

There is no clause in US law requiring that a prosecution be discontinued because the defendant is running for office. In fact, it could lead to the bizarre spectacle of Trump campaigning for the presidency at night and sitting in the courtroom by day.

Even if he were convicted of serious crimes, there’s nothing stopping him from moving into the White House if he wins the election. However, the House of Representatives would likely start impeachment proceedings against him and the Senate would likely convict and remove him from office.

Some Republicans would defend Trump even in such circumstances, but that only goes to show how low the Grand Old Party has sunk under his influence. If the looming lawsuits are disastrous for Trump, they are equally damaging to his party. Republicans once portrayed themselves as defenders of “law and order” but have now been marginalized by Donald and his supporters.

Extremism has helped Trump win over hard-core right-wing activists, but it has little appeal to mainstream American opinion. It is worth remembering that not only did he lose the election in 2020 by a wide margin, but he also lost the popular vote in 2016, barely surviving thanks to his votes in the electoral college.

Whatever the outcome, Trump’s presence at the top is an indictment of the American political system, now increasingly characterized by a gerontocracy with Biden, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican leader Mitch McConnell, senior Senator Bernie Sanders and Trump governed themselves are decades older than many of their helpers.

One can only hope that if this case signals Trump’s political end, it will also produce a generation of Republicans with fresh ideas and the energy to implement them.

• David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and author of three best-selling books on Mr. Trump