EDITORIAL: Trump faces more charges in documents probe

Joe Biden and his allies are desperately trying to shield the president from the potential scandals percolating around his son’s various business ventures and personal travails.

In stark contrast, Donald Trump seems to be doing everything he can to exacerbate his legal troubles.

Last week, federal prosecutors filed additional charges against Mr. Trump stemming from the secret papers brouhaha. In June, he was formally accused of violating the Espionage Act by retaining possession of 31 classified documents related to national security and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them. The new, “superseding” charges include allegations that the former president tried to conceal or destroy evidence. The Mar-a-Lago property manager is also named.

The new charges aren’t flattering. They essentially allege that Mr. Trump had his workers move boxes in and out of a storage room in order to avoid complying with government efforts to secure the classified material — and then later asked those employees to delete the computer servers containing security footage of the area.

Mr. Trump deserves the presumption of innocence. But as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, it’s often the cover-up rather than the initial allegation that presages the fall. And in this case, Mr. Trump’s alleged actions, if true, erode his own defense.

The former president has repeatedly said that he had the authority to declassify any government document even just by “thinking about it.” Therefore, it would be impossible, Mr. Trump has asserted, for him to have broken the Espionage Act if he had previously taken such steps with the paperwork in question. In addition, he has claimed that the Presidential Records Act allows him to keep documents from his Oval Office tenure.

Why, then, would Mr. Trump be concerned about the content of the surveillance footage?

None of this has hurt Mr. Trump in the GOP presidential primary polls, as he continues to enjoy a large lead over his many challengers. The former president’s mantra that he is a victim of a partisan “witch hunt” resonates with a great many of his followers because he has indeed been in the crosshairs of his Democratic political opponents from the day he entered the White House. The unprecedented impeachments by House Democrats vindicated such perceptions.

But Mr. Trump has too often been his own worst enemy, letting his arrogance and impetuousness override more prudent instincts. His four years in the presidency were marked by many accomplishments — the economy, judicial appointments — but he sure does make things easy for his rabid foes.