2023-06-09 00:16:24
Donald Trump announced on Thursday June 8 that he had been indicted by federal justice for his management of the White House archives, the most serious prosecution at this stage for the Republican who dreams of regaining the American presidency in 2024.
“The corrupt Biden administration has informed my lawyers that I have been charged, presumably in the bogus case of the boxes,” he wrote on his Truth Social network in reference to the boxes of documents he took with him in leaving the White House and which have already earned him a spectacular search of his Florida home last summer.
The billionaire, whose Florida home was raided last summer by FBI agents looking for the records, said he was due in federal court in Miami on Tuesday.
His lawyer Jim Trusty clarified on the CNN channel that his client would go to this summons, and that he was the subject of seven charges, in particular under a law on espionage which prohibits keeping classified documents in unauthorized and unsecured locations. Donald Trump, who is now the first former president in US history to be indicted by federal justice, is also being prosecuted for obstruction of justice and perjury, he added.
In March, he had already been charged with several accounting frauds by the justice of the State of New York in the case of the purchase of the silence of an actress of X movies in 2016. This time, the indictment file remains under seal but, according to the American media, Donald Trump is notably prosecuted for illegal retention of state secrets, obstruction of justice and false declarations.
Read also American presidents and their archives found: malice, negligence or hypocrisy?
The former real estate magnate, who is currently well ahead of the other candidates for the Republican nomination, has always defended himself from any embezzlement and presents himself as the victim of “political persecution”. “I am innocent, I have done nothing wrong and I will fight”, he still assured Thursday evening in a video posted on Twitter, denouncing “electoral interference at the highest level “.
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The elected Republicans immediately closed ranks around him. “It’s a sad day for America,” said Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee. President Joe Bidenwho is also a candidate in 2024, “tramples the rule of law for his own interest”, judged the senator Josh Hawley.
Without being so categorical, the billionaire Elon Muskincreasingly present in the political arena, judged that there “seemed to be more interest in prosecuting Trump than other politicians”.
Democrats, on the other hand, welcomed the news, while warning against Donald Trump’s speech. “He will try to instrumentalize this indictment for political gain, because winning the presidency may be his only way to avoid prison,” said elected official Adam Schiff. In the United States, being charged and even convicted of an offense or a crime does not prohibit being a candidate, elected or holding an official position.
11 000 documents
Leaving the presidency to settle in his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence, Donald Trump took entire boxes of files. However, a 1978 law obliges every American president to transmit all of his e-mails, letters and other working documents to the Archives national. Another law, on espionage, prohibits anyone from keeping documents classified as confidential in unauthorized and unsecured places.
In January 2022, after several reminders, he agreed to return 15 boxes, containing more than 200 classified documents. In a letter, his lawyers then assured that there were no others. After examination, the federal police, however, estimated that he had not returned everything and that he still kept a lot in his club in Palm Beach. FBI agents went there on August 8, and seized around thirty other boxes, containing 11,000 documents, some of which were very sensitive, on Iran or China.
Strongly denouncing a media operation, his lawyers had strongly criticized the FBI for the publication, according to them unnecessary, of a photo showing seized documents stamped with the words “Top Secret”, scattered on a carpet with a floral pattern.
Setbacks
To silence accusations of a frame-up, Justice Secretary Merrick Garland in November appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, to oversee this investigation independently, as well as another into Donald Trump’s role in the assault. of the Capitol.
Another special prosecutor is investigating in parallel classified documents found earlier this year in a former office and at the home of Democratic President Joe Biden by his lawyers.
These embarrassing finds, as well as others in the ex-vice-president Mike Pencehave allowed Donald Trump to minimize the seriousness of his conduct, even if Joe Biden has always cooperated with justice, returning the documents of his own free will, in a much smaller number.
And Donald Trump’s setbacks will probably not stop there. A Georgia state prosecutor, who has been investigating for months the pressure exerted by the Republican to try to change the result of the 2020 presidential election, must announce the result of her investigations by September.
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