Loaded before grand jury
Trump fears arrest after Capitol storm
07/18/2023, 5:12 p.m
His supporters should fight “like the devil” after his competitor Biden won the presidential election, Trump said on January 6, 2021. The storming of the Capitol will probably have legal consequences for the ex-US president. Trump expects an indictment.
According to his own statements, former US President Donald Trump is the “target” of investigations into the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – and could therefore also be charged in this case. Trump said he received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith on Sunday night. Smith gave him four days to appear before a so-called grand jury, “which almost always means an arrest and indictment,” wrote the Republican presidential candidate. Trump declared that a “third indictment” had now been de facto decided against him as President Joe Biden’s “number one political opponent”.
Smith had already obtained charges against Trump in the secret documents affair in June. The Justice Department had used the special counsel in November to outsource the politically sensitive investigations into the ex-president.
Smith is currently conducting two investigations in parallel: one on the secret documents that Trump took from the White House to his private estate Mar-a-Lago in the state of Florida at the end of his term in early 2021, and one on Trump’s possible criminal responsibility for the violence January 6, 2021.
Trump wants to run for president again
Radical Trump supporters stormed the Capitol when Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was to be certified there. Trump had previously called on his supporters to march to the Capitol and fight “like the devil” (literally: “We fight like hell.”). In the weeks before, the incumbent who had been voted out had claimed that he had been the victim of massive voter fraud – a claim that has been refuted many times.
The bloody attack on Congress with a total of five dead caused horror around the world and is considered a black day in the history of US democracy. Last December, the House investigative committee into the storming of the Capitol recommended that the judiciary initiate criminal proceedings against Trump for, among other things, inciting or aiding and abetting a riot. The 77-year-old wants to run against Biden in the presidential election in November 2024 – and is currently the clear favorite for his Republican Party’s presidential candidacy.