Is Donald Trump eligible for a second term as President of the United States in 2024? The 45th American President sees a multiplication of legal disputes anyway: He is accused of, among other things, 37 charges, in particular for “withholding information related to national security” and “obstruction of justice” in the case of the White House archives, according to the indictment was published on Friday, June 9th.
The former White House tenant, who left Washington with boxes of files, has also been charged with perjury and conspiring with his assistant, Walt Nauta, to hide documents requested by the federal police.
The laws in the United States “are the same for everyone,” federal special counsel Jack Smith said after the release of the 37 counts. In a short speech broadcast live, the prosecutor made it clear that his services wanted a “speedy trial”.
Donald Trump announced Thursday, June 8, that he had been indicted by the federal judiciary. “I’m innocent,” he claimed, portraying himself as a victim of a conspiracy orchestrated by his Democratic opponents.
The nature of the lawsuits had been described by his lawyer, but the court record remained sealed and the Department of Justice maintained absolute silence.
Nuclear mysteries in the bathroom
In the United States, a law requires presidents to submit all their emails, letters, and other working documents to the national archives. Another espionage law prohibits the keeping of state secrets in unauthorized and unsecured locations.
When Donald Trump left the White House in January 2021 to settle into his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, he still had taken dozens of boxes full of files with him. A year later, after several reminders, he agreed to the return of 15 boxes containing almost 200 secret documents.
However, federal police estimated he had not returned everything and still kept much at his Palm Beach club. FBI agents carried out a spectacular search there on August 8 and confiscated around thirty other boxes containing 11,000 documents.
According to the indictment, classified information was found “in a bathroom”, but also “in another bathroom, in a shower” or even in “an office” or “a bedroom”.
Among those illegally stored documents are American nuclear secrets, according to the indictment dated Friday, June 9th.
“The secret documents that Trump kept in boxes contained information about the defense capabilities of the United States and other countries” and “about America’s nuclear programs,” the document says. Prosecutors add that their possible “distribution would have endangered the national security of the United States.”
Will a Former Personal Assistant Be Charged Soon?
Donald Trump said on the day of the arraignment that a former personal assistant and possible key witness in the case would also be indicted by the federal judiciary on the record.
The former US president did not detail the allegations against Walt Nauta, a military officer who served during Donald Trump’s presidency before leaving the administration to continue working at his side after his defeat in 2020.
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“I just found out that the Justice Department ‘thugs’ are going to indict Walt Nauta, a wonderful man,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
Joe Biden washes his hands off it
Right now, Republicans are rallying around Donald Trump, including his rivals in the party’s presidential race, whom he is way ahead of.
Current President Joe Biden, who is also running for the 2024 election, on Friday June 9 made sure he had no contact with Attorney General Merrick Garland on this very sensitive matter.
“I haven’t spoken to him at all and I won’t speak to him either. And I have no comment on that,” he told a reporter who asked him about it. Supporters of the former Republican president accuse Joe Biden of instrumentalizing the judiciary ahead of the 2024 presidential election, which could see the two men meet again.
With AFP