The dispute between Donald Trump and the National Archives, which became public after FBI agents ransacked the former president’s mansion in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, is unprecedented in American history. This is a major decision by Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is already being accused of a political vendetta against the man who ran against Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and is likely to seek re-election in 2024.

The decision to investigate Mar-a-Lago threatens the Justice Department’s credibility just months before the fall congressional elections and at a time when the country remains deeply polarized. For Mr. Garland, the pressure to justify the FBI’s actions will be intense. And if the investigation of classified documents that Donald Trump is said to have taken with him from the White House does not lead to significant conclusions about criminal activity, the latest events may be added by historians to the chain of actions against the former president that backfired on opponents.

In Mr. Trump’s case, National Archives officials discovered earlier this year that the former president took secret White House documents with him after his election defeat, prompting a prosecutor’s investigation. At some point, a subpoena was required to find out what documents were in Trump’s possession. Key questions remain unanswered, such as why prosecutors felt it necessary to launch this unusual investigation after months of legal wrangling between the administration and Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

The actions of the Department of Justice are high-risk, but Donald Trump is also in serious danger.

The investigation comes as angry voices on the far right of American political life speak of a new civil war as more and more establishment Republicans threaten political retaliation if they gain control of Congress in the November election. California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, warned Mr. Garland to save the papers and not make an appointment any time soon (implying he would have nothing to do with them). “It all creates a political culture that is suitable for emergencies,” says Douglas Brinkley, a historian of American presidents at Rice University.

For 35 years, disputes over presidential documents and who controls them have been largely bureaucratic, played out in the National Archives and occasionally ending in courtroom legal battles. Former President Richard Nixon spent nearly four years after the Watergate scandal battling for control of the millions of pages of presidential documents and hundreds of hours of records that led to his resignation. Initially, Nixon made a deal with President Gerald Ford to gain control of the documents in question and the ability to destroy them if he wanted to. However, a law passed by Congress in August 1974 forced him to go to court after his resignation. He eventually lost the battle in the Supreme Court, which dismissed his appeal by a 7-2 vote.

This controversy led to the passage of the Presidential Records Act (1978), which for the first time established that White House records were the property of the federal government, not the president who created them. In addition, laws were passed regarding the handling of secret documents by presidents and their aides. Some federal officials faced criminal charges for mistreatment. Gen. David Petraeus, director of the CIA under Obama, admitted in 2015 that he gave top-secret documents to his mistress, pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. Sandy Berger, National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton, paid a $50,000 fine after admitting he wrongfully removed classified documents from the National Archives in 2003 to testify before a Congressional subcommittee investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks. September 2001

However, never in history has there been a conflict between a former president and the federal government that we see today. Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio tweeted a video comparing Biden to a Third World dictator and saying “Things like this happen in places like Nicaragua.” According to historians, American democracy faces a new endurance test. “We are on the brink of a new civil war at an unprecedented moment in American history,” Brinkley said.

In dire straits, many fronts

The former US president took his own risk when he rushed to denounce Garland and the FBI last Monday while his home was under investigation, calling it “an attack that could only happen in a fractured third world country.” Since he no longer enjoys presidential immunity, he would be vulnerable if found to have handled classified material recklessly, endangering national security. And that’s not his only legal headache. On Wednesday, the former president was subpoenaed to testify before New York prosecutors who are preparing to prosecute the Trump group’s questionable business practices. The fact that he refused to answer, citing the Fifth Amendment to the constitution, suggests that he is in a difficult position. Meanwhile, congressional investigations continue into unprecedented acts of sabotage perpetrated by Trump supporters at the instigation of the outgoing president on January 6, 2021 at the Capitol.