Last week, Former President Donald Trump was indicted yet again, this time in a federal court, by Federal Prosecutor Jacks Smith and his special counsel, who took Trump’s case involving the mishandling of classified documents to a Southern Florida-based grand jury. The indictment was unsealed and made public on Saturday, 10 June.
It revealed that President Trump has been charged with 31 counts of Willful Retention of National Defence Information, one count of Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice, one count of Withholding a Document or a Record, one count of Corruptly Concealing a Document or Record, one count of Concealing a Document in a Federal Investigation, one count Scheme to Conceal, and two counts of False Statements and Representations—that is a total of 38 counts. He is due to appear at a federal courthouse in Miami, Florida today, Tuesday, 13 June. This is all in connection to the stacks of classified documents stored in his private estate, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.
The former President also faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree that he faces in New York City, in relation to the hush money payments he made to keep porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about their extramarital affair. PM Viktor Orbán of Hungary offered his support to the former POTUS upon the news of his first indictment breaking back in March.
Also named in this recent federal suit against President Trump is Waltine Nauta. He is a 40-year-old US Navy veteran, who worked as a White House military valet under President Trump and followed him to his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the presidency. He is described as Trump’s personal aide and ‘body man’ in the indictment. He also moved a lot of the classified documents in question at the direction of President Trump, and thus ended up entangled in the criminal case.
These allegations carry heavy implications. If convicted, both men are likely to face over a decade in prison, as
even the mid-range of the sentencing guidelines for these crimes assign a 9–10 year sentence in federal prison.
And this may not even be all for President Trump. Despite living the first 76 years of his life with a clean criminal record, a whole barrage of charges is coming his way as he is preparing for his third run for the presidency. A grand jury is currently hearing his case in connection with his involvement in the 6 January riots at the Capitol Building, a prosecutor in Georgia has already requested special protection in preparation for a likely announcement of charges related to Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, and there is also a civil case pending in New York State alleging unpaid taxes.
Despite all this, not only does Donald Trump lead the national polls for the Republican primary, but
he is also ahead in the national polls for the 2024 general election against Joe Biden.
In the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, which was proven remarkably accurate for the 2022 midterm elections, he is currently up by 1.8 points.
Legal experts agree that no indictment, nor a conviction can legally stop him from running for President. In fact, there is already a precedent of a candidate running for the highest office from prison. The candidate for the Socialist Party, Eugene V. Debs, was imprisoned for violating the Sedition Act of 1918, speaking publicly against the United States’ involvement in World War I. However, he still ran in the 1920 election, and got 3.41 per cent of the popular vote (while winning no states, evidently).
Upon the news of his second indictment, President Trump released this video message in response:
Orbán Weighs In
The Hungarian prime minister is well-known for his unconditional support of Donald Trump. The PM has publicly stated that he’ll be backing Trump to win next year’s election and return to the White House. He has also stated that the war in Ukraine would not have broken out had Trump been President at the time.
Reacting to the news of the indictment, Viktor Orbán had this to say on Twitter:
A Blatant Bias: Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton Have Not Been Indicted
Classified documents were also found in President Joe Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC, as well as his home in Wellington, Delaware, from his time in office as President Obama’s Vice President between 2009 and 2017. The FBI ended up conducting searches on both locations in early 2023. However, in order for Biden to face charges, he would first have to be impeached in the House of Representatives and then convicted in a Senate by a two-thirds majority, which is virtually impossible with the narrow Republican majority in the House and the Democrats controlling the Senate.
An even better comparison may be with Hillary Clinton, who was extensively probed by the FBI for storing classified information on an unsecure email server in her home back in 2016.
However, despite her case showing a close similarity to Donald Trump’s, she never faced any criminal charges.
Good News for the Former President? Case Assigned to Trump- Appointed Judge
As reported by the US media last night, Trump’s case has been assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump-appointee to the federal district court in southern Florida. Cannon is described in the leftist media as a partisan actor who tried to ‘sabotage the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s possession of classified documents’. Well, perhaps she will simply consider the case in a fair and balanced way, instead of presuming the guilt of the former President, as his adversaries (pretend to) do.
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