In a 45-page text released Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith accuses him of undermining the foundations of American democracy by attempting to tamper with the vote count in the presidential elections, an unprecedented and especially serious charge given that he was president at the time. exercise.
To the contrary, the other two criminal indictments handed down against him this year, one for accounting fraud due to the payment of money to an adult film actress to buy her silence and another for having endangered national security with the negligent handling of documents confidential, correspond to a period before and after his mandate.
The court where the charges will be read is near the Capitol, the seat of the United States Congress, which was allegedly stormed by hundreds of supporters of Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in their effort to prevent victory from being certified. from his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.
The assault was “encouraged by the lies” that the defendant told for months about the alleged electoral fraud in favor of Joe Biden, Smith said after making the indictment public.
At dawn, approximately a hundred journalists lined up to enter the court. Both the building and the Capitol are surrounded by security barriers.
“Instrumentalization”
The prosecutor declared on Tuesday that he wants “a speedy trial” so that it could coincide with the campaign for the 2024 presidential election, and perhaps with Trump as a candidate. To this day he is the clear favorite for the Republican primaries.
At the moment, the impact of the new indictment on his candidacy is unknown. In the recent accusations that he has received, Trump has been favored. Well, with each one of them he has obtained greater support -financial- for the race to return to the White House.
Over and over again, the ex-president has denounced a “witch hunt”, a new “electoral interference” and a “political use” of justice to prevent him from being a candidate. And he insists that the 2020 elections were “stolen” from him.
This Thursday he stood firm. On his Truth Social platform, he accused Biden of ordering the Justice Department to charge him with “as many crimes as can be invented.” They want, he says, to force him “to spend vast amounts of time and money defending himself.”
Trump has already spent millions of dollars on lawyers, nearly depleting his campaign funds for which he has so far raised more than $54 million in six months, well more than his Republican rivals.
“Democrats don’t want to run against me, otherwise they wouldn’t resort to this unprecedented instrumentalization of ‘Justice.’ But soon, in 2024, it will be our turn,” he added.
His latest indictment “has revealed to the world the corruption, scandal and failure that has taken place in the United States over the past three years,” he said on Wednesday, under his successor.
Despite his legal entanglements, Trump has the loyalty of a broad section of his party. He holds a substantial lead in the polls for the Republican nomination, far ahead of his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
And this might not be your last judicial headache. The Georgia prosecutor’s office is also investigating whether Trump illegally tried to change the result of the 2020 election in this southern state.
FOUNTAIN: With information from AFP
