Going all the way back to Richard Nixon’s inexplicable decision to record himself committing crimes and then getting his secretary Rosemary Woods to take the fall for erasing the most incriminating segment, American political scandals have been defined by a simple credo: it’s not the crime that gets you, it’s the cover-up. For instance, in the Iran Contra affair, Lt Colonel Oliver North enlisted his secretary Fawn Hall to help him shred damaging documents and President Bill Clinton notoriously dispatched his secretary Betty Curie to retrieve gifts that he had given to former White House aide Monica Lewinsky during Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s investigation. Presidential hopeful John Edwards persuaded a campaign worker to take responsibility for fathering the child Edwards had with his mistress while his wife was dying of cancer. In every case, these attempts to cover up their misdeeds by dispatching an underling to do their dirty work was eventually discovered. But these privileged, powerful leaders just can’t seem to help themselves.. The latest in this long line of such cover-ups is, naturally, Donald Trump. The indictment in the Mar-a-lago classified documents case was for 37 felonies including violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice The Espionage Act charges apply to his willful withholding of national defense information while the obstruction charges apply to his attempts to cover up what he’d done when the federal government asked for them back. His loyal manservant Walt Nauta was charged along with Trump with five counts of concealing or withholding…