2023-08-04 01:07:16
Former President Donald Trump, the favorite candidate among the Republicans for the 2024 presidential elections, pleaded not guilty to “conspiracy” to alter the result of the 2020 elections, when appearing this Thursday before a court in Washington. After appearing in court, Trump said that he is experiencing “political persecution” and stressed that it was “a very sad day for the United States.”
In a 45-page text released Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith accuses him of undermining the foundations of American democracy by trying to tamper with the vote count in the presidential elections, an unprecedented and especially serious charge given that Trump was president at the time. in excercise.
What is Trump accused of?
Judge Moxila Upadhyaya agreed to release Trump this Thursday after setting the conditions for his release, and set the next hearing against the former president for August 28. The 77-year-old Republican magnate pleaded not guilty to all four charges against him: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
For the first of these accusations, he could receive a maximum sentence of five years in prison, for the second and third twenty years in prison, respectively, and for the fourth, ten years. At the beginning of the session, Upadhyaya asked him a series of rigorous questions about his name and age and if he used drugs or alcohol that day, to which Trump replied no.
At the Ronald Reagan airport, on the outskirts of the US capital, Trump defined the accusation as “the persecution of the person who leads the Republican primaries by very, very substantial numbers and leads Biden by a lot.” He had already accused Biden hours before, on his Truth Social platform, with whom he could meet again at the polls next year, of having ordered the Department of Justice to attribute to him “as many crimes as can be invented” and of ” unprecedented instrumentalization of justice”.
The judge herself contradicted him this Thursday. “I can guarantee everyone that there will be a fair trial and a fair trial,” Upadhyaya said. After this preliminary hearing, the case goes to federal judge Tanya Chutkan, who already ruled against him in 2021. The federal court is located near the Capitol that was assaulted by hundreds of Trump supporters on January 6, 2021 in their eagerness for preventing Biden’s victory from being certified.
The attack on Congress was “encouraged by the lies” the defendant told for months about alleged electoral fraud in favor of Biden, prosecutor Smith said when making the indictment against Trump public. Before leaving the court, the former president had to accept a series of conditions to remain free, such as not violating federal or state law, attending court when required, and not communicating with witnesses except through their lawyers or in the presence of them.
“Presidents are not kings”
It is not the first criminal indictment against Trump but the other two, handed down against him this year, one for accounting fraud due to the payment of money to a porn actress to buy her silence and another for endangering national security with negligent management of confidential documents, correspond to a period before and after his mandate. They don’t seem to care.
“I need one more indictment to guarantee my election!” In 2024, she defiantly held up on his social network. “Soon, in 2024, it will be our turn,” Trump predicted and insisted for the umpteenth time, without evidence, that the 2020 elections, which Biden won, were “corrupt, rigged and stolen.” To this day, the former president is the clear favorite for the Republican primaries.
Speaking to reporters at the airport before leaving Washington on his private plane, Trump said it was “a very sad day” and he also found it “very sad” to go to Washington and see “the filth and decay, and all the damaged buildings and walls.” “This is not the place I left,” the former president said before boarding his personal plane, Trump Force One, and leaving for New Jersey to go to his golf club in Bedminster.
Outside the court, some protesters and onlookers who did not want to miss this historic moment gathered. “Presidents are not kings,” read one protester’s sign, paraphrasing Judge Tanya Chutkan, who in 2021 said that “presidents are not kings and the plaintiff is not president,” denying Trump the chance to failing to turn over documents to a congressional committee investigating the attack on the Capitol.
At the moment, the impact of the new indictment on his candidacy is unknown. Despite his legal entanglements, Trump commands the loyalty of a broad section of his party. He holds a substantial lead in the polls for the Republican nomination, far ahead of his closest rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
This might not be your last judicial headache. The Georgia prosecutor’s office is also investigating whether Trump tried to illegally change the result of the 2020 elections in this southern state in which he lost by a narrow margin.
Biden, who is on vacation, tries to stay out of his rival’s legal problems, at least in the face of public opinion. When this Thursday morning, during his bicycle ride in Delaware, he was asked if he would continue the indictment against Trump, his answer was resounding: “No.”
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