Donald Trump indictment: 37 criminal counts, seven deadly sins and plenty of Miami vice
The legal case of a political generation paints a troubling picture of Donald Trump, who becomes the first former president charged with federal crimes when he steps before a Miami judge Tuesday.
But it's not only the 37 criminal counts, ranging from violating the Espionage Act to obstruction of justice, that should have him on his knees, praying.
The federal indictment also suggests Trump committed the seven deadly sins - things that go not to Trump's acts but to his character and carry a risk of political condemnation.
Gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride (we'll get to lust later) - the vices that lie behind the allegations will be intimately familiar to Trump's most devout followers in the Republican Party, those who claim to be led by the Bible teachings.
In allegedly hoarding highly classified documents in a careless manner, obstructing and lashing out at those who would seek their return and then showing them off to bolster his reputation, he has given in to the baser human instincts.
But the extent to which devotees are blinded by their faith in him as their political patriarch will determine just how costly his sins turn out to be in the 2024 presidential race.
Trump's legal woes, and his desire to return to the White House after four chaotic years and a 2020 defeat, show the former president to be a glutton for punishment. The indictment also leaves him looking like a glutton for top-secret information.
In office, Trump collected newspaper clippings, letters, photos, official documents and mementos, as any other occupant of the Oval Office might do.
But the indictment alleges he further stored hundreds of classified documents" in these boxes - materials that he had no legal right to possess as of 12 p.m. on Jan. 20, 2021, when he ceased to be president.
The boxes were taken from Washington to his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., which, the indictment notes, was not an authorized location for the storage, possession, review, display, or discussion of classified documents."
In May 2021, four months after he left office, the National Archives and Records Administration began demanding that Trump return the records in his possession.
Compliance was slow. It took until January 2022 to hand over 15 boxes containing 197 classified records; 128 were marked SECRET" or TOP SECRET."
It might have ended there, had the FBI not discovered alleged evidence of concealment" and issued a subpoena ordering the return of all other classified documents.
On May 23, 2022, a greedy Trump met with two attorneys to discuss the subpoena and allegedly told them: I don't want anybody looking through my boxes."
He also allegedly suggested to the lawyers that they not co-operate with federal investigators. Wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here?"
In his first months in the White House, Trump vowed to enforce all the laws" to do with classified information. No one will be above the law."
Yet he seemingly didn't care about the security of documents in his post-presidency possession, including details of U.S. nuclear capabilities, military attack scenarios and communications with foreign leaders.
The files were shunted from the stage of a Mar-a-Lago ballroom to the estate's business centre, then into a bathroom and shower area and later a storage room that the indictment stated could be reached from multiple outside entrances."
There is no more fitting image for Trump's alleged lack of care than a box of documents marked SECRET" found to have tipped over and spilled onto the storage room floor.
A wrathful Trump has blamed Attorney General Merrick Garland for his legal woes. He has blamed Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation. He has blamed the FBI, Justice Department and, most of all, President Joe Biden.
Hell hath no fury like a former president scorned.
Crooked Joe & his thugs are destroying America!" read one of the many diatribal posts made to Trump's social media followers Monday as he travelled from New Jersey to Miami.
He's even taken a run at his own former attorney general, William Barr, calling him a gutless pig" after he said that the idea of presenting Trump as a victim here - a victim of a witch hunt - is ridiculous."
This entire thing came about because of the reckless conduct of the president," Barr told Fox News on Sunday.
Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton, added Monday on CNN that the case against Trump was devastating"
This really is a rifle shot and it should be the end of Donald Trump's political career."
Instead, the perceived persecution and his desire for political power - which eluded him in 2020 - fuels Trump, and he wraps his envy in a thin sheet of altruism.
They're coming after you - and I'm just standing in their way," goes his oft-used line, trotted out in speeches to supporters as recently as this weekend.
The truth is that Trump has carefully created an upside-down universe in which each additional criminal charge results in support among his core backers solidifying.
And while he rails against political persecution, he and his campaign work have integrated his presidential campaign and his legal defence, asking visitors to the Trump website to please make a contribution to stand with me today and prove that you will never surrender our country to the radical Left."
All with the intention of returning to the White House, which Biden beat him to the last time around.
Pride is considered the worst of the deadly sins, and it was pride that led to the most damaging of the allegations against Trump - a caught-on-tape moment for the ages.
It's defined as the pleasure derived from one's own achievements. And the indictment recounts a prideful Trump meeting a writer, a publisher and two staff members at his golf club in New Jersey in July 2021.
He allegedly brandished a highly confidential" document containing secret" information pertaining to American military plans to attack an undisclosed country.
When a nervous staffer warned him about disclosure of the document, Trump allegedly said: As president I could have declassified it ... Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."
A few months later, Trump also allegedly showed a classified map of an undisclosed country to a political fundraiser while at the same time acknowledging he should not have been doing so.
Lust is the sole deadly sin not conjured up by the federal case over document mishandling, though it is front and centre in Trump's earlier and ongoing criminal charge in New York. The allegation is that he falsified business records to cover up reimbursement of a $130,000 hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with Trump.
Trump's trail of alleged misdeeds is already approaching biblical proportions.
He will not be broken on the wheel, though, nor force-fed, dismembered alive, boiled in oil or thrown into a snake pit, as was recommended in long-ago times as punishment for these cardinal sins.
While a possible jail term, if he is found guilty, could be several years away, the worst immediate fate Trump faces is additional disgrace followed by political defeat.
But even that seems unlikely for now. The unsealing of the federal indictment Thursday coincided with a small bump in support for Trump as the Republican presidential nominee.
Allan Woods is a Montreal-based staff reporter for the Star. He covers global and national affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @WoodsAllan