“AM AN INNOCENT MAN”
US judiciary accuses Trump of document affair
06/09/2023, 01:55 am
Last August, the FBI confiscated numerous documents during a raid on Donald Trump’s private home. The former president is said to have brought her from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his term in office. So now he’s going to court.
Donald Trump has been charged in the secret documents affair. “The corrupt Biden administration has informed my attorneys that I have been charged in what appears to be the false classified documents affair,” explained the former US President on his online platform Truth Social. A confirmation from the US Department of Justice is not yet available. Several US media outlets have confirmed the charges, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Trump, who plans to run again in the 2024 presidential election, said he was summoned by a court in Miami on Tuesday. “I never thought it possible that something like this could happen to a former President of the United States,” he wrote. Then he added: “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!” It is “a dark day” for the United States.
11,000 confiscated documents
The FBI seized around 11,000 documents, including many with classified information, during a raid on Trump’s private home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida last August. Trump took the documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his term in January 2021.
Presidents are required by law to turn over official records to the National Archives after the end of their term of office. In addition, there are strict legal rules for dealing with secret documents, including a law on espionage.
In November, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to take over the investigation into the affair. Smith is also investigating Trump’s criminal liability in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol storming.
Has Trump incriminated himself?
According to media reports, investigators only gathered new details at the beginning of June. The television channel CNN and other media, citing informed circles, reported that investigators had come across a recording from the summer of 2021 in which Trump had admitted possession of a Pentagon document classified as secret. He made it clear that he was aware that he had taken confidential material with him after leaving the White House.
Further investigations are ongoing against Trump. All eyes were on the New York case that led to the first criminal indictment in US history of an ex-president, in which he pleaded not guilty. It was about a hush money payment to the porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election. The trial in New York in the affair is scheduled to begin in the spring of next year – and thus in the middle of the Republican primary campaign for the 2024 presidential candidacy, in which Trump is the clear favorite.
In the state of Georgia, the public prosecutor’s office is also investigating Trump for possible election manipulation. In another case, Trump has already been prosecuted – at least indirectly. His real estate group was fined in New York for tax fraud, among other things. The ex-president was not personally accused.