The US attorney general on Friday appointed an expert war crimes prosecutor “in the public interest” to independently investigate Donald Trump, three days after his declaration of the 2024 presidential bid.
Merrick Garland announced in a televised address that he had entrusted this extremely “sensitive” mission to Jack Smith, The Hague-based prosecutor for the Special Court for Kosovo.
“Given recent events, including the former president’s announcement of his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election and the current president’s intention to run as a candidate, I have concluded that it is in the public interest that he appoint a special prosecutor,” he said. he said he.
Jack Smith immediately takes the lead in two separate months-long federal investigations: the first relates to the fallout from the 2020 presidential election, the second to the former president’s handling of allegedly archived confidential documents.
Investigations into the assault on the Capitol
Prosecutor Smith, in a statement, immediately promised to act “quickly”, “independently” and “thoroughly”. Knowing that Donald Trump must not stop denouncing a politicized justice and a new “witch hunt”, Merrick Garland also insisted on the impartiality of the prosecutor.
“As a special prosecutor, he will exercise his professional judgment independently to decide if there should be an accusation” in one or the other of these files, the minister said.
The first series of investigations entrusted to Jack Smith relate to Donald Trump’s efforts to contest his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, up until his supporters’ assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, at the time of the victory certificate. from his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
This extensive investigation has already led to the indictment of almost 900 people who directly participated in the violence.
But prosecutors have never ruled out looking at other actors. “Anyone who is criminally responsible for the efforts to overturn the election will have to answer for their actions,” Merrick Garland has said repeatedly in the past.
Documents stolen from the president after his defeat
The second investigation relates to the White House files. On leaving the presidency, Donald Trump took whole boxes of documents with him. However, a 1978 law requires any US president to transmit all his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.
In January he returned 15 boxes. Upon examination, federal police estimated that she probably had others at his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. FBI agents conducted a spectacular search there on August 8 based on a “withholding of classified documents” and “obstructing a federal investigation” warrant, and seized about thirty other boxes.
An intense legal battle then ensued to determine the nature of the seized documents – classified, personal or declassified – which slowed down the proceedings but, again, a federal prosecution remains possible. Donald Trump has already been the subject of an investigation overseen by a special prosecutor in the past: Robert Mueller was tasked in 2017 with establishing whether there was collusion between his campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
After two years of investigation, he had judged that he did not have sufficient evidence of a plot between Moscow and the Trump team, but he had noticed a series of disturbing pressures exerted by the tenant of the White House on his investigation and it was said that he could not get rid of it. of suspicions of obstruction of justice.
However, the then Justice Minister, Republican Bill Barr, did not consider it necessary to prosecute him. During his tenure, Donald Trump was also the subject of two impeachment trials: one, for “abuse of power,” in connection with the president’s pressure on Ukraine to provide embarrassing items for Joe Biden; the other for “inciting an insurrection” in the attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted in both cases thanks to the Republican majority in the Senate.
Source: BFM TV
