The US Department of Justice has appointed an independent prosecutor to coordinate investigations against the former tenant of the White House.
SourceAFP
© EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI / AFP
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UAn independent prosecutor has been announced by the Justice Minister to oversee the Donald Trump investigations. The billionaire is currently the target of two separate federal justice investigations. “Given recent developments, including the announcement of the candidacy for the next presidential election of the former president and the intention to run for the current president, I have decided that it is in the interest of the public to appoint a special prosecutor,” Merrick Garland told a press conference. He entrusted this mission to Jack Smith, ex-prosecutor based in The Hague of the Special Court for Kosovo, where he dealt with war crimes. “I intend to exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward quickly and thoroughly regardless of the conclusions that will arise from the facts and the law,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
Donald Trump’s reaction was quick in an interview with Fox. The former president called the announcement “unfair” and “political.” Denouncing “the worst politicization of justice” in American history, the Republican billionaire added that he would not participate in the investigations. “It’s shameful they’re doing this just because I’m leading in the polls,” he continued. Remarks quickly denied by the White House through its spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre: “The president was very clear to say that this administration will not politicize the Ministry of Justice”, then to entrust: ” The president was unaware. We have not been informed. We were not warned in advance”.
The first investigation relates to the assault carried out by his supporters against the Capitol on January 6, 2021 at the time of the certification of the victory of his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the presidential election of 2020. This sprawling investigation resulted in the indictment of nearly 900 people who directly participated in the violence. But prosecutors have never ruled out looking at other actors. “Everyone who is criminally responsible for efforts to nullify the election will have to answer for their actions,” Merrick Garland has said repeatedly.
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The archives kept at Mar-a-Lago
The second investigation relates to the archives of the White House. Leaving the presidency, Donald Trump took entire boxes of documents. However, a law of 1978 obliges any American president to transmit all of his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives. In January, he returned 15 boxes. After examination, the federal police estimated that he probably kept others in his luxurious Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence.
FBI agents carried out a spectacular search there on August 8 on the basis of a warrant for “withholding classified documents” and “obstructing a federal investigation”, and seized around thirty other boxes.
An intense legal battle then opened to determine the nature of the documents seized (classified? personal? declassified?) which slowed down the procedure but, here again, a federal indictment remains possible. In the past, Donald Trump has already been the subject of an investigation supervised by a special prosecutor: Robert Mueller was charged in 2017 with establishing whether there had been collusion between his campaign team and Russia.
After two years of investigation, he had judged not to have enough evidence of a plot between Moscow and the Trump team, but had noted a series of disturbing pressures exerted by the tenant of the White House on his investigation and was said to be unable to clear him of the suspicions of obstruction of justice. The Minister of Justice at the time, Republican Bill Barr, however, did not consider it necessary to prosecute him.