2023-06-13 05:41:39
The judicial noose is tightening on Donald Trump. Former US President finds himself in court on Tuesday, June 13, charged with his negligent management of state secrets after his presidency.
The 76-year-old billionaire, again a candidate for the White Houseis summoned before a judge in Miami at 15 h 00 (19 h 00 GMT) to be notified of the charges against him.
He is accused of having kept confidential documents after his departure from the White House, which included confidential information on nuclear weapons.
The former president faces 37 charges, including “unlawful retention of national security information”, “obstructing justice” and “false testimony”.
A case that threatens his candidacy
It is the first time that a former US president is federally charged. At the beginning of April, Donald Trump had already been charged with several accounting frauds by the justice of the State of New York, in connection with a payment made before the presidential election of 2016 to silence an actress of X films who claims to have been his mistress. But this case in Miami seems more compromising.
In the United States, a law obliges presidents to transmit all their emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives. Another, on espionage, prohibits keeping state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured places.
Read also Classified documents: why was Donald Trump indicted and not Mike Pence or Joe Biden?
In January 2021, when he left the White House to settle in his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Donald Trump had nevertheless taken away dozens of boxes full of files.
According to the indictment, they remained stacked on the stage of a “ballroom”, before being transported to a “storeroom” accessible from the swimming pool, where certain documents marked with the mention “secret defence” had been seen sprawled on the ground. In January 2022, after several reminders, he agreed to return boxes containing nearly 200 classified documents.
Still convinced that it was missing, FBI agents had carried out a spectacular search at Mar-a-Lago on the 8 August and had seized about 30 other boxes, containing 11 000 documents.
The real estate magnate has always called this file a “witch hunt” aimed at hindering his presidential candidacy. He accused President Joe Biden, whom he could face in 2024, of interference “and his band of thugs”. According to one of his lawyers, Donald Trump should plead not guilty.
This hearing, with explosive political potential, raises security fears from Miami authorities, after calls on social networks to defend Donald Trump.
Read also American presidents and their archives found: malevolence, negligence or hypocrisy?
“We take this event very seriously,” said Florida police chief Manuel Morales at a press conference on Monday.
Serial cases
As after his appearance in New York in April, Donald Trump made an appointment with his followers in New Jersey the same evening, for a speech scheduled for 8 p.m. h 15 (00 h 15 GMT Wednesday).
During his last indictment, which had been the subject of dizzying media attention, the former occupant of the White House boasted of having raised millions of dollars from his supporters.
Many of them, convinced that he is the victim of a plot, continue to swear their support.
Targeted by several other investigations, Donald Trump is probably not done with legal problems. A Georgia prosecutor is due to announce by September the outcome of her investigation into his pressure to try to change the 2020 presidential election.
The criminal trial of the former president in New York should be organized in early 2024, right during the Republican primaries, of which he is currently the big favorite.
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