2023-06-08 23:44:37
(Washington) Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has 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, who thus becomes the first former president in the history of the United States indicted by federal justice, specifies that he was summoned to court in Miami on Tuesday.
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 remains under seal, but, according to American media, Donald Trump is notably prosecuted for illegal retention of state secrets, obstruction of justice and false statements.
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”.
Elon Musk
“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 “.
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 Biden, who is also a candidate in 2024, “tramples the rule of law for his own interest”, judged Senator Josh Hawley.
Without being so categorical, the billionaire Elon Musk, more and more 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 once morest 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 sentenced for 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.
PHOTO GIORGIO VIERA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The Florida residence of Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago
However, a 1978 law obliges every American president to transmit all of his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives. Another law, on espionage, prohibits anyone from keeping documents classified as confidential in unauthorized and unsecured places.
In January 2022, following 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 them very sensitive, on Iran or China.
PHOTO JON ELSWICK, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The list of documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago.
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 mention “Top Secret”, scattered on a carpet with a floral pattern.
Setbacks
To silence accusations of a frame-up, Attorney General 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 Capitol storming. .
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, along with others from ex-Vice President Mike Pence, allowed Donald Trump to downplay the seriousness of his conduct, even though Joe Biden has always cooperated with justice, voluntarily returning the documents, in much smaller numbers.
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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