C’is the second time Trump has been impeached in three months, and it’s serious business. Justice is looking at the hundreds of classified documents stored at his home after his departure from the White House. While the New York case, in Donald Trump’s long string of legal troubles, has been described as weak – it involved payments to a porn actress hidden in bank accounts, seen as a ploy to influence the election of 2016 – that one has always been considered solid.
With this case, Donald Trump becomes the first president to be indicted at the federal level. Once again, he announced it himself on his network, Truth Social. He must appear, Tuesday, June 13 at 3 p.m., before the federal court in Miami, where the indictment was filed. He is accused with an aide, Waltine Nauta, who continued to work for Trump after he left the White House.
He was the one who allegedly moved the boxes from a storage room to the Mar-a-Lago residence for Trump to check the contents. Nauta then told investigators that he was unaware that these boxes had been moved.
The indictment, approved by a grand jury of 23 people, unfolds, over 49 pages, 37 counts. Of these, 31 relate to the deliberate withholding of information relating to national defense, in violation of the law on espionage which prohibits the keeping of state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured places. Each is liable to a maximum of ten years in prison.
He is also accused of concealing documents related to a federal investigation – Trump and Nauta allegedly concealed the boxes of documents from investigators and the grand jury -, of conspiracy to obstruct justice – between Trump and Nauta to preserve the documents — and false testimony — Trump repeated that he returned them to law enforcement and tried to hide the fact that he kept them.
Conspiracy is punishable by twenty years in prison. The images attached to the complaint are surprising. We see heaps of boxes on a ballroom stage, between the gilding of Mar-a-Lago, on the marble floor of a bathroom – lit by a chandelier – or overturned in a storage room – accessible from the pool, according to the indictment.
“Confidential” or “top secret”
The law obliges presidents to return all their documents – including their letters and e-mails – to the National Archives when they leave office. Donald Trump, when he left the White House in January 2021, had however taken boxes. In January 2022, after numerous requests, he returned fifteen. The police, believing that he had not returned everything, had nevertheless issued a summons to return the missing items. His lawyers had rendered others.
READ ALSOThe United States, Hobbled GiantIt was because the police believed that the account was still not there that the FBI raided the Mar-a-Lago club on August 8, 2022, and got their hands on around thirty additional boxes, including some 11,000 documents. The latter “included information on the defense capabilities of the United States and foreign countries”, on American “nuclear programs” and on “potential vulnerabilities in the event of an attack on the United States and its allies”, d after the indictment.
The boxes returned to the Archives contained 184 classified documents, those returned after the summons 38, and those found during the search 102, making a total of 324 classified documents. Some were marked “confidential”, others “secret”, still others “top secret”.
A document on “the nuclear capabilities of a foreign country”
The complaint notes that Mar-a-Lago was an “active club” between the end of Donald Trump’s presidency in January 2021 and the August 2022 raid. Yet Trump stored his boxes there, “including in a reception room, a toilet with a shower, an office, his bedroom and a storage room”. She brings together numerous testimonies from her lawyers and advisers and describes several scenes where Donald Trump boasted of having these documents in front of visitors and accused him of having shown them to them.
READ ALSOPresidential in the United States: the disastrous campaign launch of Ron DeSantisIn particular, in 2021, at Bedminster, Trump’s residence in New Jersey, he allegedly showed a Pentagon “attack plan” on Iran, including a military operation map, to a visitor who would not have should not have had access to this information. Donald Trump also had a document on “the nuclear capabilities of a foreign country”.
The indictment lists sensitive information contained in the documents and notes that “disclosure without authorization could jeopardize United States national security, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the viability of methods for collecting sensitive information”.
Refusal to return records
In addition, the indictment dismantles the arguments put forward by Trump since last summer. He always maintained that it would have sufficed to ask him to return the documents and that he would have done so. But transcribed conversations show that not only was he aware of the Department of Justice’s request, but that he also asked his collaborators to hide these files and expressed his refusal to return them.
READ ALSOGérard Araud – Can Donald Trump be re-elected? “I don’t want anyone looking in my boxes,” he told one of his lawyers. He also asked if it wouldn’t be better “if we just told them that we have nothing here”. Trump also always claimed he could declassify the documents, as a former president, just by thinking about it. A recording from 2021 shows he knew it was wrong. “As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” he says.
Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel leading the investigation, and who drafted the complaint, said at a press conference, “Our laws that protect information that protects national defense are critical to safety and security. United States security and they must be enforced. Violations of these laws put our country at risk. »
Fingerprints and photos
Trump compared the impeachment to the “greatest witch hunt ever” on his network, Truth Social. “I never thought it possible for something like this to happen to a former President of the United States, who has garnered far more votes than any other President in the history of our country and who is now, by far, ahead of all the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans, in the polls for the 2024 presidential election. I am an innocent man! »
Classified documents were also found at Joe Biden and Mike Pence. dating from when they were vice-presidents, the first from Barack Obama, the second from Donald Trump. Biden intends to run again in 2024 and Pence is seeking the Republican nomination.
On Tuesday in Miami, Trump’s fingerprints and photos are expected to be taken before the indictment is read, after which he will be released. Several hearings are expected to follow, where the prosecution will have to hand over their evidence, decide what they can cite directly without compromising sensitive US and other country security information, and more.
READ ALSOUS Presidential: Mike Pence risks further humiliationA trial would take place months later and, if Donald Trump was found guilty, the verdict would not come before a possible appeal. If he chooses to plead guilty, there will be no trial. His lawyers will likely seek to drag out the trial before the November 2024 election.
The role of the judge will be crucial, she will decide in particular on the evidence to be admitted or not. This is Aileen Cannon, a judge appointed by Donald Trump in 2020. Last summer, she had been receptive to Trump’s arguments and granted him the appointment of a special adviser to oversee the investigation into the documents. .
2023-06-10 08:37:00
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