Mr. Smith had a lot of help from Mr. Trump. Had the former president cooperated with investigators and immediately returned all the classified material in his possession, as Messrs. Biden and Pence did, charges would have been unlikely. But Mr. Trump did what he always does. He attacked Mr. Smith and resisted his efforts. That provoked investigators to double down, which in turn led Mr. Trump to engage in the allegedly obstructive conduct that forms the basis for several counts in the indictment. …

The reason this recording is so powerful is that it is self-proving. It doesn’t rely on testimony by flipped witnesses or antagonists of Mr. Trump. It is the kind of evidence every defense lawyer dreads and every prosecutor dreams about. This is particularly important because an appellate court could find legal error in the ruling that Mr. Trump had vitiated attorney-client confidentiality and reverse convictions based on his lawyers’ compelled testimony. A conviction that rests on a consensually recorded conversation would be harder to challenge.

Mr. Smith has made a stronger case against Mr. Trump than many observers, including me, expected. The question remains: Is it strong enough to justify an indictment of the leading candidate to challenge the president in next year’s election? Even with the recorded statements, this case isn’t nearly as strong as the one that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

[It doesn’t have to go past the Nixon line to be enough to prosecute or convict, of course. Dersh is certainly correct that it may not be enough to prevail over partisanship, but at least this will be contested in a relatively neutral jury-pool environment and (so far) under an arguably friendly judge. If a conviction follows from that environment, it might lend more credibility to the result, as Desrh also argues. — Ed]