There was a time when Donald Trump said that he cares about the integrity of classified information. This, of course, happened when his opponent was accused of compromising intelligence and being a useful political weapon for Trump.

During 2016, he accused Hillary Clinton of using a private mail server instead of a secure public one. “I will comply with all laws regarding the protection of classified information,” he said at the time. “No one will be above the law.” Clinton’s handling of confidential information “deprives her of her right to run for president,” he said.

Seven years later, Trump is accused of endangering national security by taking secret documents as he left the White House and refusing to return them even after being subpoenaed. It may be true, as the saying goes, that “everything is borrowed,” but it is noteworthy that the problem that helped propel Trump to the White House now threatens to rob him of his chances of a comeback.

The federal indictment effectively closes the circle of Trump’s story. “Lock her up,” the crowd chanted at his campaign rallies against Mrs. Clinton, cheering him on. He now faces jail if found guilty on any of the seven charges listed, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and willfully concealing government documents.

This is the second charge against the former president in recent months, but in many ways it dwarfs the first in terms of both legal significance and political risk. The first charge, announced in March by the Manhattan District Attorney, involved falsifying business documents to cover up bribery by sex film actress Stormy Daniels. The second is filed by a federal prosecutor representing the American nation as a whole, the first in American history against a former president and involves national secrets.

While Trump’s defenders tried to dismiss the first charge as the work of a local elected Democrat, the new accusations stem directly from his responsibility as the nation’s commander in chief to protect data that could be useful to America’s enemies.

Republican voters may not care if their leader pays a porn star to keep quiet, but will they be indifferent to obstructing authorities trying to get secret documents?

It is possible… Trump, of course, hopes so. The accusation in Manhattan only seemed to boost his ratings in the polls, not hurt him. And so he immediately dismissed the latest indictment as part of the most outrageous conspiracy in American history, a conspiracy he says involves a wide array of local and federal prosecutors, juries, judges, prosecutors, regulators and witnesses who all lied. … frame him for years until he’s the only one telling the truth, regardless of the accusations.

Trump will try to turn this against his persecutors, arguing that the fact that he was indicted and Hillary Clinton was not is evidence that she is being wrongfully persecuted.

It doesn’t matter that the facts of the cases differ, that he seemed to go out of his way to deliberately prevent the authorities from obtaining classified documents for several months, while investigators concluded that Mrs. Clinton was not intentionally trying to break the law. But it will be a useful political argument for Trump to insist that he is the victim of a double standard tactic.

Trump has spent most of his presidency ignoring information security concerns and government records: he disclosed highly classified information to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office, posted confidential satellite imagery of Iran on the Internet, continued to use an unsecured mobile phone even after he said he is being watched by Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies, tore up official documents and threw them on the floor when he was done with them, despite laws requiring them to be kept and recorded, leaving aides to pick up the torn pieces and tape them back. together.

Even when faced with the consequences of his actions, Trump never expressed concern. He was the president and could do whatever he wanted. Even while investigating the secret documents he brought to Mar-a-Lago, he defended himself by claiming that he had the power to declassify anything he chose just by thinking about it.

He is no longer president. Now he faces not only voters who will decide whether to remove him from the presidency, but also a prosecutor who says he will enforce the law on the protection of classified information.