Independent prosecutor appointed to investigate Trump

(Washington) The United States Attorney General on Friday appointed an expert war crimes prosecutor to independently investigate Donald Trump, three days after he declared his presidential candidacy in 2024.

During a televised speech, Merrick Garland entrusted this extremely “sensitive” mission to Jack Smith, prosecutor based in The Hague of the Special Court for Kosovo.

The former Republican president immediately denounced a “political” and “unfair” decision. “It’s shameful they’re doing this just because I’m leading the polls,” he told Fox reporters, saying he wouldn’t cooperate with investigators.

Acknowledging his decision to seek re-election and Democratic President Joe Biden’s intention to do the same, Merrick Garland deemed it “in the public interest” to appoint a special prosecutor to take over two investigations that had been going on for months by American justice.

The first relates to the Republican billionaire’s efforts to change the results of the 2020 presidential election, the second to his management of the White House archives.

After gathering all the elements, the special prosecutor “will exercise his professional judgment independently to decide whether there should be an indictment” in either of these cases, said Mr. Garland.

However, the special prosecutor will only be responsible for making a recommendation and it will be up to the attorney general to decide. If he were to ultimately indict Donald Trump on this basis, his decision will be harder to attack.

The initiation of legal proceedings would not prevent the real estate mogul from competing, but would cast a shadow over his candidacy.

” Quick ”

Denying any instrumentalization of the judiciary, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre for her part assured that President Biden had not been informed in advance of the decision of his attorney general.

In a statement, Attorney Smith promised to act “quickly”, “independently” and “thoroughly”.

The first investigation entrusted to him concerns Donald Trump’s efforts to contest his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, until the assault led by his supporters against the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

This sprawling investigation has already led to the indictment of nearly 900 people who directly participated in the violence.

But prosecutors have never ruled out looking at other actors. “Everyone who is criminally responsible for efforts to nullify the election will have to answer for their actions,” Merrick Garland has repeatedly said.

The second investigation relates to the archives of the White House.

Leaving the presidency, Donald Trump took entire boxes of documents. However, a law of 1978 obliges any American president to transmit all of his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.

In January, he returned 15 boxes. After examination, the federal police estimated that he probably kept others in his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

FBI agents carried out a spectacular search there on August 8 on the basis of a warrant for “withholding classified documents” and “obstructing a federal investigation”, and seized around thirty other boxes.

Russian investigation

In the past, Donald Trump has already been the subject of an investigation supervised by a special prosecutor: Robert Mueller was charged in 2017 with establishing whether there had been collusion between his campaign team and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

After two years of investigation, he had judged not to have enough evidence of a plot between Moscow and the Trump team, but had noted a series of disturbing pressures exerted by the tenant of the White House on his investigation.

The Justice Department at the time, Republican Bill Barr, however, did not consider it necessary to prosecute him.

During his tenure, Donald Trump was also the target of two impeachment trials: one related to pressure on Ukraine to give him embarrassing material for Joe Biden; the other on his role in the attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted in both cases thanks to the Republican majority in the Senate.