Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has been informed that he is personally targeted by the federal investigation into the assault on the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, a new legal thorn in the side of the candidate for 2024.
"Jack Smith, Joe Biden's nutcase Justice Department prosecutor, sent a letter ... indicating that I am the TARGET of the grand jury investigation into January 6th," the former wrote. US President on his Truth Social network.
Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for special prosecutor Jack Smith declined to comment.
The tempestuous politician and billionaire, big favorite in the Republican primaries for 2024, is already doubly indicted by the courts: in the case of confidential documents from the White House and for suspicious payments to a former actress of X films.
He claims on Tuesday that he was given "four tiny days" to report to the grand jury, a group of randomly selected citizens with broad investigative powers.
If he assures that this procedure leads "almost always" to an indictment, the Washington Post indicated that it was not systematic.
On Truth Social, the 77-year-old ex-president denounces a "witch hunt", a new "electoral interference" and a "political use" of justice.
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump gave a fiery speech to his supporters gathered near the White House, calling on them to "fight like hell" against the results of the presidential election that elected officials were to certify that day. .
Thousands of his supporters then sowed chaos and violence in the Washington Capitol, the temple of American democracy.
More than 1,000 people have since been arrested and some 350 of them have been charged with assaulting police officers or refusing to comply with their arrest. Some members of far-right militias have even been convicted of sedition.
Donald Trump assures that he is targeted because of his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election.
A parliamentary commission of inquiry with a Democratic majority, dissolved at the beginning of the year by the new Republican majority, had accused the former president of having heated his supporters white before the coup and "failed in his duty as commander in chief" during the assault.
In its final report, the panel said Donald Trump should never again be allowed to hold new public office.
Its members had also recommended that criminal proceedings be launched against him by the federal justice system, in particular for "calling for insurrection".
Donald Trump did not specify on Tuesday the possible charges against him in this investigation led by Mr. Smith.
The ex-president is already indicted in the federal investigation into his management of confidential documents after his departure from the White House, also led by Jack Smith.
He is accused of having endangered national security by keeping documents in an unsecured manner after leaving Washington and of having refused to return them, despite legal injunctions. He pleaded not guilty in mid-June.
Prosecutor Jack Smith has called for the trial in the case to begin in December, but Donald Trump's lawyers have argued for it to take place after the presidential election, which is held in November 2024.
At a procedural hearing in Florida on Tuesday, the judge in charge of the case, Aileen Cannon - who was appointed by Donald Trump - appeared, according to the Washington Post, to adopt an intermediate position: wary of the idea of being able to organize the trial in December, she also did not seem inclined to postpone it until after the presidential election.
She indicated that she would make her decision quickly.
Rival in the race for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley denounced a "new distraction". "We can't stay stuck there, focused on legal proceedings, again and again," added the former ambassador to the UN.
The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, has accused Joe Biden, also a 2024 presidential candidate, of instrumentalizing American justice to "attack his number 1 opponent".
Elected Democrat in the House, Adam Schiff castigated the "pathetic" remarks of Mr. McCarthy. "It's shameful to protect a corrupt former president."
The troubles may not end there for Donald Trump: a Georgia prosecutor must also announce by September the result of her investigation into the pressure he exerted to try to alter the result of the presidential election of 2020 in this southern state.
18/07/2023 23:48:55 - Washington (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
