(Washington) Federal prosecutors prosecuting Donald Trump for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election unveiled Tuesday plans to introduce evidence they say shows the former US president was determined to “remain to power at all costs.
In a court document, the services of special prosecutor Jack Smith highlight that the Republican had, on several occasions, refused to promise a peaceful transition in the event of defeat against Joe Biden.
The prosecution “will provide evidence that this refusal in itself demonstrated the defendant’s criminal conspiracy, because it exposes his plan to remain in power at all costs, even in the face of the risk of violence,” prosecutors say.
Donald Trump was federally indicted in August for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, with the 77-year-old billionaire baselessly claiming he won the vote at Joe Biden’s expense.
His trial in this case is scheduled to open on March 4, 2024, a key period in the primary campaign for the Republican presidential nomination of the same year, for which he is the big favorite in the polls.
The business magnate’s lawyers have repeatedly sought to delay the opening of this trial, beyond the November 2024 election. They argue, among other things, that their client benefits from “absolute immunity” for acts committed while he was president.
Strategy
In the court document unveiled Tuesday, prosecutors outlined part of the strategy and evidence they intend to use for this unprecedented trial of a former president.
The prosecution “will present a number of public statements” made by Donald Trump, in which he warned that there “would be fraud in the 2020 presidential election,” they indicate.
“These statements instilled distrust in the results of the presidential election and served as a basis for the defendant’s criminal efforts,” the prosecution adds.
The statements include a November 2012 tweet in which Donald Trump made “unfounded claims” that voting machines switched votes from then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney to Democratic incumbent Barack Obama. .
During his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton, the real estate mogul also “repeatedly asserted, without foundation, that large-scale electoral fraud existed,” prosecutors continue.
According to them, these erroneous assertions illustrate “the motive, intent and plan to obstruct the certification of the results of the 2020 election and to illegitimately retain power” by Donald Trump.
Prosecutors also linked these attempts to overturn the results of the polls to the day of January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, in an attempt to prevent the formalization of Joe Biden’s victory.
“The defendant openly and proudly supported” these individuals, including “by suggesting that he would pardon them if he was re-elected”, underlines the accusation.
“Divine right of kings”
The argument of Donald Trump’s supposed immunity was swept away last week by the judge in charge of this trial.
“Whatever immunities a sitting president might enjoy, the United States has only one person as head of the executive branch at a time, and that role does not confer a lifetime ‘Get Out’ card. -prison”,” she says.
Donald Trump’s presidential mandate did not grant him “the divine right of kings to escape” justice, adds the magistrate.
The trial in this case is just one of the legal hassles facing the former president.
At the beginning of June in Florida, Donald Trump had already been indicted at the federal level, a first for a former American president. He is accused of having put the security of the United States at risk by keeping confidential documents, after his departure from the White House in January 2021, in his residence in Florida, instead of handing them over to the National Archives as required. required by law.
Donald Trump denounces his legal troubles as so much “electoral interference” at the instigation of the Democratic administration to exclude him from the race for the White House.