The third time, will it be the charm? The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, faces this Thursday a new appearance before a court in 2023 he was the winner.
It is not the first or second time that the ex-president has been charged, but on this occasion, his criminal charge has been the most relevant since a grand jury has accused him of having tried to subvert American democracy to retain power. In this 2023, Trump has risen as the first former president of the United States to face criminal charges, a dubious honor that began in a case investigated in New York and related to the alleged payment of a bribe to silence the porn actress Stormy Daniels with whom had an “affair”. While the second indictment came in June at the hands of a Miami grand jury, which accused him of illegally carrying classified White House documents that were found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.
The third accusation that he faces
Joe Biden and having encouraged the 2021 assault on the Capitol to stop its ratification. “From a political point of view, this indictment touches on more important issues because it affects our form of government, the nature of democracy in the United States, and the peaceful transfer of power,” Mark C. Smith, a professor, told EFE on Wednesday. of Political Science and Constitutional Law from Cedarville University (Ohio).
But from a legal point of view, this new accusation “is more complicated and much more difficult to prove” than the documents found in the Trump mansion, the expert added.
Charged with four crimes
The former president will appear this afternoon before a District of Columbia judge, Tanya Chutkan, appointed by former President Barack Obama, and who is known for handing out the harshest sentences in cases of assault on the Capitol. Despite this, she is expected to plead not guilty, as she already did in the New York and Miami cases, which she considers a “witch hunt” against her.
Specifically, Trump faces one count of conspiracy “using dishonesty, fraud, and deception to obstruct the national process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election,” which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The former president faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiring to prevent Congress from certifying the results collected at the polls and a sentence of ten years in prison for conspiring against the right to vote. Finally, the fourth charge carries a sentence of 20 years in prison for attempting to obstruct the certification of the ballots.
A fully designed plan
The indictment, signed by special counsel Jack Smith, accuses Trump of knowingly spreading lies about fraud in the November 2020 election and devising a scheme with other collaborators to have fake election officials declare victory for the Republican in states where he lost.
On January 6, 2021, he pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the ratification of Biden’s victory in Congress in his capacity as president of the Senate. When it became clear that Pence was not going to cooperate, Trump encouraged the storming of the Capitol by a mob of his supporters by doubling down on “false claims of voter fraud.”
Professor Mark C. Smith
A candidate for the US presidency, in jail?
This trial, like the other two pending, will not begin until next year, in the middle of the November 2024 presidential election campaign, in which Trump aspires to fight Biden again to return to power.
What is clear is that the judicial siege that is tightening around Trump has so far not diminished his popularity among Republicans, since he remains unbeatable in the polls for the Republican Party primaries. A poll published by the New York Times on the Monday before the impeachment placed Trump with 54% support, well ahead of what was set to be his great rival in the Republican primary, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with only 17%.
Smith doubts that the former president will close a judicial agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office given that “in his personality there is no room for any type of admission of guilt”, for which he sees “possible” that the Republican “ends up in prison and may run in the elections from the jail”. And the law does not prevent it. Trump could be a candidate from prison, win the election and even be sworn in as president. “In that case, I think Mr. Trump would try to please himself,” the expert predicted.
Accustomed to avoiding judicial fronts, it remains to be seen if this third thrust derails Trump’s political career or, on the contrary, catapults his return to the White House.
