The other day I signed a third-party agreement to back up to the cloud our document repository. Functionality: kind of ho-hum, routine, and back-end. Cost: about $200 per year. However, the agreement took weeks to negotiate and ended up being over 30 pages of gobbledygook legalese, replete with WHEREASes and disclaimers and tangled prose.

By comparison, yesterday, Special Prosecutor Jack Smith released an eminently readable speaking indictment charging the 45th President of the United States with four federal crimes in connection with his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election:

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States,

Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding,

Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding, and

Conspiracy against Rights.

The story told in this legal document reads like a Tom Clancy thriller in straight-ahead prose, without a whiff of legalese. It sequentially builds a damning case that captures the voices and stories — as told under oath to a Grand Jury — of scores of high-ranking Republicans. They chronicle the lies, deceit, and perfidy of our fallen commander-in-chief as he desperately tried and failed to hold on to the reins of power following the November 2020 election. His words and actions culminated in the deadly coup attempt on 6 January 2021.

The first document described here today invited me to sign, scan the small print, and forget it. Alternatively, the second document, the indictment, was clearly written so that every word would be read, reread, shared with others and responded to and acted on by its readers. Writing matters, whether documenting something mundane, or sparking readers to action at a most critical time. Thus, the first document heads for the file cabinet; the second leads to the courtroom, the ballot box, and the history books.