We at the Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee agree with our Republican friends from time to time. Indeed, we strive to find common ground and build consensus, for the betterment of our community and the country. So, after the news broke that former President Donald Trump had been indicted for refusing to return classified documents and obstructing the FBI and grand jury’s investigations, we were gratified to see prominent Republicans express views that are similar to our own and sound the alarm about the dangers of Trump’s behavior.

We don’t just mean the “usual suspects”—Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney—or candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, such as Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd. Each of them has criticized Trump’s actions. No, we’re referring to former Trump administration appointees, cabinet secretaries and national security officials, as well as highly accomplished conservative lawyers. We hope others, including Jewish Link readers, heed these warnings from those who served closest to Trump and recognize the threat to our national security that Trump represents.

Take Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton, for example. “If Trump truly stood for America First policies,” wrote Bolton, “he would support the rule of law instead of continually flouting it.” Opining on the seriousness of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s allegations, Bolton said, “This is material that in the hands of America’s adversaries would do incalculable damage to the United States. This is a very serious case … this is the national security of the United States at stake.”

Acknowledging that Trump will have his day in court, Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “Trump had classified documents where he shouldn’t have had them, and then when given the opportunity to return them he chose not to do that…. That’s inconsistent with protecting America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.”

Trump’s former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney concurred, and suggested why Trump may have acted the way he did: “If he’d simply given the documents back once he found out they had them, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he was not capable of doing that. His ego is simply too large.”

Asked if he thought that Trump could ever be trusted with the nation’s secrets again, Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper answered, “If proven true under the indictment by the special counsel, no. I mean, it’s just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation’s security at risk.”

Appealing to fellow Republicans, Trump’s former Attorney General Bill Barr, wrote: “For the sake of the country, our party, and a basic respect for the truth, it is time that Republicans come to grips with the hard truths about President Trump’s conduct and its implications. Chief among them: Trump’s indictment is not the result of unfair government persecution. This is a situation entirely of his own making. The effort to present Trump as a victim in the Mar-a-Lago document affair is cynical political propaganda.”

Ty Cobb, former White House counsel for Trump, commented, “This is such a tight case, the evidence is overwhelming.”

Like Barr and Cobb, other right-wing lawyers have voiced similar sentiments in recent weeks. Conservative luminary and former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Michael Luttig wrote, “[Trump] dared, taunted, provoked, and goaded DOJ to prosecute him from the moment it was learned that he had taken these national security documents … After a year and a half, he finally succeeded in forcing Jack Smith’s appropriately reluctant hand, having left the Department no choice but to bring these charges lest the former president make a mockery of the Constitution and the Rule of Law.”

Fox News legal contributor Jonathan Turley, who testified against impeaching Trump, and Andrew McCarthy, a former U.S. attorney who wrote a book defending Trump, made many of the same points as above.

But one doesn’t even need to listen to Trump’s aides and advisers; just listen to Trump himself. In his own words, “We can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘confidential’ or ‘classified.’” And, “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”

Indeed!

At the same time, unlike the tendencies of some of our friends across the aisle, we will not call for Trump’s imprisonment before he even has a chance to present his defense in a court of law. We do have one question, however. Recalling the Teaneck Republican Municipal Committee’s letter in these pages on September 8, 2022, criticizing the FBI for its so-called “egregious” search of Mar-a-Lago (“The Mar-a-Lago Search”), we wonder if they still feel the same way. We hope they have reconsidered.

The Teaneck Democratic Municipal Committee