Donald Trump’s skirmish with American justice continues. A little over two weeks before a presidential election which still promises to be as undecided, the federal court in charge of the case of the assault on the Capitol and the ex-president’s attempt to illegally reverse the result of the 2020 election made public, this Friday, October 18, nearly 1,900 pages of the prosecution’s file against the Republican candidate.
The vast majority of evidence published in this file is not new, and some of the pages have been blacked out and sealed. It includes the transcription of interviews conducted as part of the investigation, such as that of former Attorney General William Barr. The latter explains that he was summoned to the White House after having affirmed in an interview that the election had not been stolen by the Democratic camp, and how he expected to be fired from his post – which was the case on December 23, 2020, one month before Joe Biden took office.
Also included in this voluminous file are extracts from the biography of the former vice-president, Mike Pence, and the clear deterioration of his relations with the ex-president. Or Donald Trump’s call with the Georgia Secretary of State in which the outgoing president asked him to “find” votes.
Accusations of electoral interference
Beyond the incriminating evidence contained in this report, its publication shows the desire of the American justice system to continue its proceedings against Donald Trump, and the evidence on which it intends to rely. And this while last July, the Supreme Court – with a conservative majority – rendered a momentous decision, affirming that it was not within its jurisdiction to prosecute the Republican candidate because of his criminal immunity as a former president . In response, the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, claimed to continue the investigation in the name of the private nature of the accusations against Donald Trump. “The core of the scheme was private in nature. He made extensive use of private actors and his campaign structures to attempt to overturn the results of the election and acted in his private capacity as a candidate,” he explained. early October.
The Republican camp obviously criticized the timing of the publication of this file with the imminent presidential election, denouncing electoral interference and demanding that it be published after the election. A request rejected by the judge in charge of the case, Tanya Chutkan, stating that “if the court withheld information to which the population would normally have access solely because of the potential political consequences of its publication, this withholding itself could constitute a electoral interference or present the appearance of it.
It was enough for Donald Trump to once again virulently criticize the American judicial system. This Friday, he notably described Judge Tanya Chutkan as “the most evil person”, and special prosecutor Jack Smith as a “sick puppy”.
However, his campaign team did not appeal the publication of these 1,900 pages of documents. The sign of a desire not to get entangled in a legal battle 17 days before the presidential election, especially for evidence that is largely already public, and which has obviously not fundamentally affected his popularity across the Atlantic. But also because Donald Trump knows it very well: if he were to run for a second term, he could order an end to federal proceedings against him. The details of the proceedings against him would then become a distant memory.