Nine pages into the newly unsealed indictment against former president Donald Trump, special counsel Jack Smith cites several public statements that Trump made on the 2016 campaign trail about the importance of guarding classified information. In August 2016, for example, candidate Trump vowed: "In my administration I'm going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law." A few weeks later, Trump reiterated: "One of the first things we must do is enforce all classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of classified information."

By the end of the Trump Administration, the Justice Department had criminally charged eight individuals for leaking information to the press. Five of them were charged under the same provision of the Espionage Act--18 U.S.C. SS 793--under which Trump has now been indicted. Two of the five were charged under SS 793 for unlawfully retaining, in addition to leaking information.

The Espionage Act's capaciousness further betrays the emptiness of claims that the special counsel's indictment marks an unprecedented act of persecution against a man who has done no wrong in the eyes of the law. It also lays bare what these complaints really are--a call not to treat a former president fairly, but to treat him better than others precisely because of his status as a former president and still-active political figure. As Smith said in a press conference last week, "We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone."

At the same time, the current moment is an opportune one in which to reevaluate the Espionage Act's breadth. The act leaves the door open for prosecutors to target a stunningly wide array of actions that entail conveying or retaining classified information. These actions include outright spying, and, yes, piling boxes and boxes of classified information into bathrooms and ballrooms in one's largely unsecured luxury resort and refusing to return them upon request. However, the act also can extend to revelations to the press and the public regarding government lies and abuses.

Since news broke of Trump's indictment, many commentators have remarked that the indictment, whether right or wrong, marks a sad day for our country. Perhaps so, but it is also an occasion for hope. For one thing, the indictment backs up Smith's assertion that no one, however high in status, is above the law. But looking ahead, the Trump indictment may also precipitate the reexamination of an old law that does a poor job of serving another American ideal: that of an informed citizenry and a vibrant press.