2023-06-09 00:17:00
Donald Trump has confirmed that there are new charges against him. He has to answer in Florida because of secret documents in his residence.
Donald Trump has to answer in court in the US state of Florida over the storage of government documents. The former US President confirmed in the “Truth Social” network he founded that his lawyers had been informed that charges had been brought.
“The corrupt Biden administration has informed my lawyers that I am being charged, apparently with the false secret documents affair,” Trump said on Thursday. He described the allegations as a “box hoax”. “I am an innocent man,” he continued. According to information from the “New York Times”, there are seven charges.
The day before, several US media had reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team had already informed the Trump camp that he was a target in an investigation.
The federal police FBI had searched Trump’s private home Mar-a-Lago in Florida in August and confiscated various classified information, some with the highest classification level. Because the Republican kept the documents in his private home long after leaving office, he could have committed a criminal offense. For months, the National Archives tried to get papers from Trump’s administration. Trump’s lawyers had finally handed over documents – but by no means all of them, as it turned out during the FBI search of the Mar-a-Lago property.
Trump: “Investigations are politically motivated”
Yesterday Trump had not yet seen any legal action against himself on the platform he co-founded “Truth Social”: “Nobody told me that I would be charged and I shouldn’t because I did nothing wrong,” he wrote and repeated his accusation that the investigations against him were politically motivated. Trump had already been charged in New York in connection with hush money payments to a porn star and was brought before the judge in early April.
Secret government documents from his time as Vice President under Barack Obama were also found on US President Joe Biden in premises where they should not have been kept. Here, too, an independent special investigator is active. In Biden’s case, however, there are significantly fewer documents. According to the White House, Biden has also not refused to hand over documents. Trump claimed in his most recent post that incumbent President Joe Biden kept 1,850 boxes of documents.
Special Counsel examines documents
The US Department of Justice appointed the independent special counsel Smith in November to outsource the politically sensitive investigation into Trump. On the one hand, Smith takes care of the investigations in connection with secret government documents. Second, it addresses Trump’s role in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 and his efforts to influence the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. A committee of inquiry had recommended criminal investigations to the Ministry of Justice. Among other things, he accuses Trump of rioting, obstructing a public process and conspiring against the US government. However, the Committee’s recommendation is not binding.
Trump has long railed that his opponents are only trying to prevent him from returning to the White House in 2024. He officially announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in November. So far, he’s leading in polls among party supporters – but a lot can still happen before the final decision is made.
Further investigations are ongoing against Trump. All eyes were on the New York case that led to the first criminal indictment in US history of an ex-president, in which he pleaded not guilty. In the state of Georgia, the public prosecutor’s office is also investigating Trump for possible election manipulation. In another case, Trump has already been prosecuted – at least indirectly. His real estate group was fined in New York for tax fraud, among other things. The ex-president was not personally accused.
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