Trump must let process unfold on the matter of documents at Mar-a-Lago

Look past all the political posturing, and you can see the obvious rationale behind the federal probe of former President Donald Trump’s possession of voluminous government documents: The material did not belong to him.

The Justice Department’s legitimate task has proceeded step by legal step as it should, and there's still plenty more to find out.

Through 2021, after Trump's departure from the White House, the National Archives and Records Administration pressed and negotiated with his representatives for the return of items that belonged with that public agency but remained in Trump's grasp. Early this year, the archivists succeeded in retrieving 15 boxes of materials stored at Mar-a-Lago. By April, the FBI was appropriately called in to see what didn't make it back and why.

Agents visited Mar-a-Lago and were assured all was properly returned. Evidently, it was not. On Aug. 8, they saw fit to raid the private Trump domain, armed with the proper court warrant from a judge. In a filing on Tuesday night, Justice Department officials affirmed that once inside, they seized more than 100 classified documents from different parts of the premises.

That revelation grows out of a side court process — initiated by Trump. He asked for an arbitrator, or special master, to parse the status of the seized documents. It was his right to ask, of course, even if his filing and stated premises for it were sloppy. In Florida, federal District Judge Aileen Cannon revealed her “preliminary intent” to appoint a special master.

The Justice Department objects to the appointment, and a decision is pending. In their opposition, department officials declared that “government records were likely concealed and removed from the [Mar-a-Lago] Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.”

With the matter of alleged obstruction in play, perhaps a special master could serve a useful purpose in parsing which materials ought to be archived for the American public and what Trump has a right to keep from official scrutiny as a matter of “executive privilege.” The government, backed by an amicus brief from former Republican prosecutors, says no such privilege applies here. Either way, under no circumstances should such an appointment be used to compromise U.S. security secrets or let Trump, famous for disrespecting propriety and lacking self-restraint, clog up and game the system.

In his role as a former president, Trump has conducted himself disgracefully in this and other probes. By none-too-subtly warning of violence if he’s prosecuted, he and his supporters may be deliberately provoking an echo of Jan. 6 — or just trying to intimidate professional law enforcement.

That said, one righteous line from Trump’s motion for a special master has our full endorsement: “Politics cannot be allowed to impact the administration of justice.”

End all the noise and threats. Let our American system work.