Aviva Fried with AFP // Photo credit: ED JONES / AFP
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7:19 p.m., August 02, 2023
Donald Trump was indicted on Tuesday for his attempts to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election, a resounding third criminal indictment of the ex-president who still aspires to return to the White House. This is an unprecedented fact for a former American head of state. The billionaire could be forced to appear in court in the midst of an election campaign next year.
The big favorite in the Republican primaries is charged with “conspiracy against the American state”, obstructing official process and violating electoral rights after an investigation supervised by special prosecutor Jack Smith. “Despite his defeat, the defendant was determined to stay in power. Therefore, for more than two months after the November 3, 2020 election, the defendant spread lies that there had been fraud that altered the result and that ‘he had in fact won,’ notes the indictment.
“These allegations were false and the defendant knew they were false,” it read. “But the defendant repeated them and disseminated them widely despite everything,” according to the document, which claims that Donald Trump launched “his criminal project” a few days after the election. The document also mentions six other people also charged, without revealing their names.
In a very brief speech in Washington, Jack Smith, looking stern, said he wanted a “trial without delay”. A first preliminary appearance has been set for August 3 in a federal court in the capital. The attack on Capitol Hill, which happened on January 6, 2021 after weeks of misinformation, “was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy,” he added. And “she was encouraged by lies. Lies by the accused intended to obstruct an essential function of the American state: the process by which the nation collects, counts and certifies the results of the presidential election”, a- he asserted.
Fiery speech
These are the most serious charges to be brought against the former head of state, who has already been prosecuted in the case of the alleged negligent management of confidential White House documents and that of suspicious payments to a former porn actress Donald Trump announced on July 18 that he had received a letter from Jack Smith informing him that he was personally targeted by the federal investigation into attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election, and in particular the assault on the Capitol on January 6.
That day, he held a fiery speech in front of his supporters gathered not far from the White House, calling on them to “fight like the devils” against the results of the presidential election that the elected officials had to certify. A mob then invaded the Capitol, scenes of violence and chaos that shocked America and the world. Tuesday afternoon, shortly before the announcement, Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform that he expected an imminent indictment, accusing the special prosecutor of wanting to hinder his campaign for 2024 and calling him “crazy”.
“Why didn’t they do it two and a half years ago? Why did they wait so long? Because they wanted it to happen right in my campaign,” he said. Donald Trump, 77, this year became the first ex-president of the United States to be criminally charged by federal justice.
Republican loyalty
The tempestuous politician nevertheless retains the loyalty of a good part of his party: he dominates the polls for the Republican nomination and even widens the gap with number 2, the governor of Florida Ron DeSantis, who combines the faux pas since the start of his campaign. “Anyone who places himself above the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” reacted Tuesday evening his former vice-president, Mike Pence, also in the race for the nomination.
The impact that this latest indictment will have on Donald Trump’s candidacy for the White House is not yet clear. The ex-president has already denounced in recent weeks a “witch hunt”, a new “electoral interference” and a “political instrumentalization” of justice to prevent him from being a candidate. Donald Trump continues to claim, without any proof, that the 2020 election was “stolen” from him.
The troubles may not end there for Donald Trump: a Georgia state prosecutor must also announce by the end of August the result of her investigation into the pressure he exerted to try to alter the result of the 2020 presidential election in this southern state. Democratic President Joe Biden, like Donald Trump candidate for 2024, did not comment on this latest development regarding his rival. On vacation in Delaware, he went to the cinema to see the film “Oppenheimer”.