Is Trump indictment right, or is it wrong?

Will the 38-count indictment laid out by federal prosecutors Friday against Donald Trump, charging him with mishandling classified documents, result in the former president being convicted, and will all this be a harm or a help in his bid to return to the White House?

That's our Question of the Week for our readers.

For most politicians, the answer would be easy. Allegations of showing off top secret information about the nation's nuclear programs, details of the country's potential vulnerabilities to military attack and plans for a potential attack on another nation with anyone not legally privy to the documents would create serious problems for their electoral future.

But Trump is not most politicians. Not only have few of his supporters been swayed by the indictment — neither have any of his major opponents in the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency.

The Justice Department says this is a cut-and-dried case. Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the case, says it's simply a defense of national security, and urged Americans to understand the “scope and gravity” of the charges.

“We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone,” he said.

Trump's GOP supporters, including the other candidates, don't see it that way. They say this is nothing more than a politically motivated move by President Joe Biden's Justice Department to attempt to take down the leading Republican presidential candidate just as his campaign moves into full swing. They say the real problem is not mishandling of classified documents by Trump; rather, it's the unprecedented situation of the federal government going after a former president currently running against the sitting president. Who's right?

Bill Barr, Trump's former attorney general, has called the government's case “damning.” But libertarian legal scholars object to the use in 31 of the counts of the Espionage Act, which the ACLU in the past has called unconstitutional. Who's right?

Clearly, Trump himself seems to relish the fight.

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