This content was published on June 8, 2023 – 03:19
(AFP)
Donald Trump was informed by the federal court that he is being personally investigated for handling classified White House files, a new challenge for the former US president who is running for a new term in 2024.
According to various US media, including The New York Times and CNN, federal prosecutors notified the former president’s lawyers that the investigation was no longer limited to his closest collaborators, but was aimed directly at him.
Prosecutors accuse him of having kept entire boxes of documents, including some classified as “top secret” after his departure from Washington in 2021, and for having refused to return them, violating federal laws.
The US media do not specify when the former president was informed, but his lawyers met on Monday with officials from the Department of Justice, in particular special prosecutor Jack Smith, in charge of independently supervising the investigation.
Trump, who for now is widely ahead of the other candidates after the Republican inauguration, has always defended himself against any embezzlement and presents himself as a victim of “political persecution.”
“How could the Department of Justice indict me when I have done nothing,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday, when his lawyers were received by officials of this ministry.
– Flowery carpet –
In the United States, a 1978 law requires every US president to transmit all of his letters, emails and other working documents to the National Archives. Another law, on espionage, prohibits anyone from keeping confidential documents in unauthorized and unsecured places.
Leaving the presidency to settle in a luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Trump nonetheless took whole boxes of documents with him.
In January 2022, after several reminders, he agreed to return 15 boxes containing more than 200 classified documents.
In an email, their lawyers assured that there were no others.
The Federal Police estimated, however, that he had not returned everything and that he still had many in his Palm Beach club.
FBI agents went there on August 8 and seized another thirty boxes containing 11,000 documents, including some highly sensitive documents on Iran and China.
Strongly denouncing a media operation, his lawyers widely criticized the FBI for publishing, according to them unnecessary, a photo showing confiscated documents stamped “Top Secret” on a flowered carpet.
To quell allegations of foul play, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to oversee this investigation, as well as another into Trump’s role in the Capitol storming.
– Porn star –
Another special prosecutor is investigating in parallel confidential classified documents found at the beginning of the year in an old office at the home of Democratic President Joe Biden by his lawyers.
These embarrassing findings, as well as others at a residence of former Vice President Mike Pence, allowed Trump to relativize his conduct, although Biden always cooperated with justice, voluntarily returning the much fewer documents.
The Republican billionaire also used those findings to unite his supporters when justice catches up with him.
This was especially the case in April, when the New York state court accused him of falsifying accounting documents in connection with the payment of $130,000 to the porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 elections, in exchange for her silence about an alleged relationship. .
It was the first time in US history that a former president had been the subject of criminal prosecution.
2023-06-08 09:54:55
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