Donald Trump does not intend to be defeated by the affair of the presidential archives. The former president, who wants to win back the White House in 2024, will speak Tuesday evening after his appearance in federal court in Miami, Florida, his campaign team announced on Sunday. In this case, he is charged with 37 counts including “illegal withholding of information relating to national security”, “obstructing justice” and “false testimony”.
The former tenant of the Oval Office will speak from one of the golf courses he owns, in New Jersey, at 8:15 p.m. (Wednesday at 2:15 a.m. in Paris), after this first hearing. He is accused of having, when he left the White House, took away thousands of documents, some of which were confidential when he should have entrusted them to the National Archives, and of having then refused to return most of them. despite requests from the federal police (FBI).
“Politically motivated” lawsuits for 47% of Americans
On Fox News, one of his lawyers Alina Habba confirmed on Sunday that he will plead not guilty in this case, the political consequences of which are difficult to measure for Donald Trump, still favorite in the Republican primary.
According to an ABC News / Ipsos poll released on Sunday, 47% of a sample of 910 Americans questioned Friday and Saturday believe that the prosecution in this case is “politically motivated”, against 37% who do not think so. But at the same time, 61% of respondents believe that these lawsuits are “very serious” (42%) or “somewhat serious” (19%), including 38% of Republicans.
In this context, the allies of the 76-year-old candidate redoubled their efforts during the weekend on television sets to ensure that he had nothing to be ashamed of. “He has every right to hold classified documents that he had declassified,” assured Alina Habba. “These are notes, things he has the right to take away,” she added.
“The President’s ability to classify and control access to national security information stems from the Constitution (…) He said he declassified this material, he can put it wherever he wants, he can treat as he wishes,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a close ally, told CNN.
An audio document that weighs down his defense
The argument, already put forward by Donald Trump, is however undermined in the indictment unveiled Thursday, which reveals that in July 2021, he showed four people without secret defense clearance “a plan of attack” prepared for him by the Ministry of Defense when he was president. “As president, I could have declassified them (…) now I can’t anymore, but it’s still about secrets”, says the one who is already no longer, at the time, president, on a audio recording cited by the court document.