In March, Trump was already indicted by the New York State Justice Department for several accounting frauds in connection with a payment made before the 2016 presidential election to buy the silence of a porn actress who claims to have been his mistress. The former real estate tycoon, who at the moment is placed far ahead of the other candidates for the Republican nomination, has permanently denied his involvement in irregularities and presents himself as the victim of “political persecution”. “I am innocent; I have done nothing wrong”, he assured Thursday evening in a video posted on Twitter, denouncing “electoral interference at the highest level”. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a rival for the Republican nomination, echoed Trump’s criticism of the Department of Justice, assuring on Twitter that he would “eliminate political bias” if elected. Without being as categorical, billionaire Elon Musk, increasingly present in the political arena, estimated that “there seems to be more interest in impeaching Trump than other politicians”. Democrats welcomed the news while also warning against Donald Trump’s speech. He “will try to use the impeachment to gain political advantage, as winning the presidency may be his only way to avoid prison,” said Representative Adam Schiff. In the United States, being charged with and even convicted of a misdemeanour or felony does not mean that person is no longer allowed to run for office, be elected, or hold official office. In January 2021, when he left the White House to settle into his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence, Donald Trump took entire boxes of files. However, a 1978 law obliges the president to hand over all e-mails, letters, and other work documents to the national archives. A year later, after several notifications, he agreed to return 15 boxes of more than 200 classified documents. In a letter, his lawyers then gave assurances that there were no others. Later, the federal police estimated, however, that not everything was returned and that Trump still kept many documents at his club in Palm Beach. FBI agents went there on August 8 and seized about thirty other boxes containing 11,000 documents, some of which were very sensitive about Iran or China. Strongly denouncing a media operation, his lawyers vehemently criticised the FBI for publishing a photo showing seized documents stamped “Top Secret” strewn across a floral-patterned carpet. To silence the conspiracy allegations, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special prosecutor, Jack Smith, in November to independently oversee the investigation as well as another into Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol attack. Another special prosecutor is simultaneously investigating classified documents found earlier this year in Democratic President Joe Biden’s former office and home by his lawyers. These embarrassing discoveries, as well as others made by former Vice President Mike Pence, allowed Donald Trump to minimise the seriousness of his behaviour, even if Joe Biden constantly cooperated with justice, voluntarily returning the documents, which were in much smaller numbers. The current case is more serious in substance than the one in New York. And Donald Trump’s troubles will probably not end here, AFP notes. A Georgia prosecutor is expected to announce by September the outcome of another investigation that began several months ago into alleged pressure on Trump to try to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

By Paul Bumman