Accused of having illegally kept secret White House documents, Donald Trump becomes the first former US president to be prosecuted by federal justice.
A federal judge in Miami read him the 37 charges against him, including “illegal withholding of information related to national security,” “obstruction of justice” and “false testimony.”
Later, Trump came out to make statements in front of his followers and warned that he is the victim of a “corrupt” and mercenary “Department of Injustice” of “the radical left.”
“When the main political opponent is arrested, we are no longer in a democracy,” he said on the night of Tuesday, June 13. in the middle of a speech that was broadcast live from Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
But what caught the most attention was the threat he sent to the President of the United States, Joe Biden. Trump claimed that if he becomes president of the country again, he will go head-on against Biden.
“I will appoint a special prosecutor for truth to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” said the millionaire and candidate of the Republican party for the presidential elections emphatically.
Trump insisted on his innocence, that he “followed the law” and that “Biden and his corrupt Department of ‘Injustice’ believe they are above the law.”
“Hillary Clinton broke the law and was not charged. Joe Biden broke the law, and we’re finding out in many other ways, and so far he hasn’t been charged. I did everything right and they charged me,” Trump added.
The former president reiterated the alleged persecution to which he has been subjected during the last seven years by “the same politicized agencies” that they “have conducted illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people.”
“It’s been a wonderful birthday,” said Trump, who turned 77 on Tuesday, June 13, wryly. among the chants of his followers, after arriving in New Jersey after the declaration in the trial against him in the case of the classified documents.
In the United States, one law requires presidents to send all their emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives, and another prohibits storing state secrets in unauthorized and insecure places.
In January 2021, when he left the White House for his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, Trump took dozens of boxes full of files.
According to the indictment, those boxes were stacked on the stage of a dance hall in the hotel complex before being transported to a storage room near a swimming pool. Some carried the mention “secret defense”.
In January 2022, after receiving several requests from the authorities, Trump decided to return boxes with some 200 classified documents.
Convinced that he had not handed over all the documents in his possession, several FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago on August 8 and they took another thirty boxes with 11,000 documents inside.
With information from Europa Press and AFP