(New York) Donald Trump will have to fight another unprecedented legal battle in the United States, while trying to continue his campaign to return to the presidency of this country divided and confused by his actions.
The big frontrunner among Republican candidates in the 2024 presidential election on Thursday became the first former president to be indicted for federal crimes. The indictment, which has not yet been released, has been filed in federal court in Miami.
According to several American media, the 45e president will face seven counts related to his handling of classified documents after his departure from the White House.
Among the crimes Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has charged against him are: willful withholding of national defense information, concealment of government documents, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and misrepresentation.
Donald Trump, who will appear in Miami court on Tuesday afternoon, himself announced his indictment Thursday evening on Truth Social, his social network.
“The corrupt Biden administration informed my lawyers that I had been charged, apparently for the box hoax,” he wrote.
“I was summoned to federal court in Miami on Tuesday,” he added. I would never have thought possible that such a thing could happen to a former president of the United States. »
Shortly after, in a video made in Bedminster, site of his golf club in New Jersey, he dismissed the charges leveled against him by the Department of Justice.
I am an innocent man. I did not do anything wrong.
Former President Donald Trump, in a video broadcast on Truth Social
The boxes Donald Trump alluded to in his post on Truth Social contained more than 300 classified documents that had been transferred from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, on or before January 20, 2021. that preceded the end of his term.
Discovery of confidential documents
Donald Trump should have returned these documents and several others to the National Archives at the end of his term, under the law dubbed Presidential Records Act.
However, despite urgent requests from officials of the National Archives, Donald Trump only agreed in mid-January 2022 to return 15 boxes of documents to them. The National Archives then discovered that highly confidential documents were in these boxes, which prompted the agency to send the file to the Department of Justice, which immediately opened a criminal investigation.
In June 2022, after sending Donald Trump a subpoena to produce documents, the Department of Justice obtained that the former president return dozens of confidential documents that had remained in his possession. But his investigators were convinced that the owner of Mar-a-Lago still kept classified documents in Palm Beach.
PHOTO GIORGIO VIERA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Police officers stand guard outside Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida on August 8, 2022
This belief was confirmed on August 8, 2022 when the FBI found more than 100 other classified documents at Donald Trump’s residence, some of which contained America’s best-kept secrets.
Since then, Donald Trump has been suspected not only of obstructing a criminal investigation, but also of violating the Espionage Act, which notably prohibits the deliberate withholding of information relating to national defense and the concealment of government documents.
Other business
This new charge in Miami is in addition to the 34 counts of falsification of corporate documents that Donald Trump will have to answer in New York. The case stems from a payment of $130,000 to porn actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence on the eve of the 2016 presidential election about her alleged sexual relationship with the future president.
Donald Trump is the target of two other criminal investigations in connection with his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. One of these investigations could lead to him being indicted next August by the Fulton County prosecutor, in Georgia.
So far, Donald Trump’s legal troubles have not harmed him politically, quite the contrary. His popularity ratings skyrocketed among Republicans after his impeachment in New York. And the verdict of a New York jury finding him responsible for sexual assault and defamation of the author E. Jean Carroll did not further affect his popularity within his party.
Unwavering allies
Thursday night, Donald Trump’s allies in Congress quickly sided with him.
“It is inadmissible for a president to impeach the main candidate who opposes him, wrote on Twitter the speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades. »
PHOTO JOSE LUIS MAGANA, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy
Like all Americans who believe in the rule of law, I stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. Republicans in the House of Representatives will demand accountability for this shameless manipulation of power.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy on Twitter
“This is a sad day for America,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement. God bless President Trump. »
Marjorie Taylor Greene, her colleague from Georgia, called Donald Trump’s indictment a “stain on [la] nation” which, according to her, demonstrates the corruption of the FBI and the Department of Justice.
“We have to win in 2024. We have to beat these sick people,” she said.
Echoes in the race for the presidency
At least four Republican presidential candidates, including Chris Christie and Ron DeSantis, have commented on Donald Trump’s indictment.
“As I’ve said before, no one is above the law, however much they would like to be,” the former New Jersey governor tweeted. We will have more to say when the facts are revealed. »
The governor of Florida was much less circumspect. “The instrumentalization of federal law enforcement poses a deadly threat to a free society,” he tweeted. For years, we have seen unequal application of the law based on political affiliation. Why so much zeal to pursue Trump and so much passivity toward Hillary or Hunter? »
The White House has not commented on the indictment of Joe Biden’s potential rival in 2024.