As if to show all the incongruity of the affair, it was not the Department of Justice that announced the indictment of ex-President Donald Trump. It was Donald Trump himself who took care of it.
So we are faced with the remarkably twisted situation of having the Biden administration’s Justice Department accusing the one it defeated in the last presidential election – and who is a declared candidate for the next one – in court.
It should be noted, however, that in the American system, charges are recommended by a jury and the Crown then proceeds with a formal indictment.
Still, we have a former president who was the subject of two impeachment attempts by Congress during his term. And who is already accused of having falsified the accounts of his company, the Trump Organization, in order to hide a payment of $ 130,000 to a porn star to buy his silence on a relationship he denies having had.
In addition, the former president is the subject of two other investigations that could lead to criminal charges.
Mr. Trump should therefore be formally charged on Tuesday in Miami, among other things under the Espionage Actof illegally keeping hundreds of documents classified as secret and refusing to return them to the archives, as required by law.
He is liable, theoretically, to several years in prison, the cause having as an aggravating circumstance the fact that he committed an obstruction of justice by making false declarations in order not to be obliged to return the documents.
If the institutions of the republic can survive all this, it is really that this country “is made strong”, as they say.
But why is Trump the first to announce his impeachment, almost as if it were a great achievement? Because it fits perfectly with the vast conspiracy theory he has been conveying for years, that he is at war with the “Deep State”, the Deep State, of which he would be the innocent victim.
But we can only see how much Mr. Trump finds himself today in the same bad sheets as his unfortunate opponent of 2016, Hillary Clinton. He had then campaigned saying that she should not be elected since there were so many investigations against her that she was at great risk of ending up in prison. It is ironic to note, today, that the roles are reversed!
But Mr. Trump still has time ahead of him. Federal courts in the United States are notoriously slow and some observers believe the trial may not begin for another year and a half or two, well after the presidential election.
In addition, Mr. Trump is a master in the art of slowing down procedures. It is no coincidence that, the day after his arraignment, he dismissed his lawyers – or asked for their resignation, it’s the same thing. This will necessarily mean additional delays.
Meanwhile, Republicans who oppose Trump are debating what is the best strategy to oppose his re-nomination as a Republican nominee.
Two camps clash. First those who say that we should not add candidates to the primaries against Trump, if only so as not to allow him to win with a minority of votes. So says New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu.
“There is too much at stake for too many candidates to nominate someone with only a third of the vote,” he wrote to the washington post.
He knows what he is talking about. In the very first primary election of 2020, in New Hampshire, as tradition dictates. Mr. Trump won 35% of the vote, with the other five candidates sharing the remaining 65%.
But the rules give a huge advantage to the winner. Thus, half of New Hampshire’s delegates went to Donald Trump, or 11, with the other candidates sharing the remaining 11.
However, this is not the opinion of the former governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, who believes that more candidates are needed to be able to expose and explain all the lies of Donald Trump.
Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence, officially broke with his former boss when announcing his candidacy. “Someone who has placed himself above the Constitution does not deserve to be president again,” he said when announcing his own candidacy. He was referring to Trump’s attempt to change the poll results on January 6, 2021.
Mr. Pence has virtually no chance of winning. But he intends to be the pebble in Mr. Trump’s shoe to constantly remind him that he was the one who tried to steal the election and that he is in no way the victim of large-scale electoral fraud.
But, for Trump, this type of pebble in his shoe never stopped him from walking!