As a businessman and president, Donald Trump faced a litany of requests and criminal investigations, yet he has emerged from legal scrutiny time and time again with his public and political reputation largely intact.
But maybe you’ve never faced it such a dangerous quest such as Mar-a-Lago, on which it focuses the possible mishandling of top secret documents.
The sense of vulnerability has heightened in recent weeks, not just because the Justice Department has appointed a special prosecutor with reputation for aggressionbut also for the removal of an independent expert in the case which had been requested by Trump and by unequivocal refusal by the judges of their lawyers’ arguments.
It is impossible to predict how long the investigation will last or whether the Justice Department will take an unprecedented step prosecute a former president e current candidate.
but trump no longer protected from being prosecuted in the way it was in office, and some legal experts believe the Mar-a-Lago investigation focuses on more direct, fact-based legal issues than previous investigations it has faced.
“Unlike many of those previous investigations involving these complex financial frauds where prosecutors have to explain to a jury to begin with why the conduct is a felony, here prosecutors will have no such difficultythey will not be challenged to explain what the crime is” if the charges are eventually presented, said Robert Mintz, a former Justice Department prosecutor.
An investigative hurdle for the Justice Department was removed last week when an appellate court panel — which included two Trump-appointed judges — disrupted the work of a special expert who had been asked for an independent review of the thousands of documents seized by the FBI in his raid on Mar-a-Lago.
The decision allows prosecutors to use the full set of documents for their investigations.
In a stark opinion going back a long way, the court acknowledged that a search of a former president’s property is extraordinary, but not so extraordinary enough to give him special treatment.
“It’s not often you see cases cited in appellate court decisions decided in 1794, in the 19th century,” said David Weinstein, a Florida criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. “These are the foundations of the law that have existed for a long time and were trusted.
Of course, investigations are nothing new to Trumpand the speculation about the legal risk he runs has already proved wrong.
Last year, New York state prosecutors indicted Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, and its longtime chief financial officer, but not the former president. In September, the New York Attorney General accused Trump of inflate his net worth by billions of dollars and cheating banks, but those allegations were made in a lawsuit, not a criminal case.
As president, he was investigated by a former special prosecutor, former director of the FBI Robert Mullerwhether his 2016 campaign was successful it was illegally colluding with Russia what if he tried to obstruct that investigation.
Mueller ultimately found insufficient evidence to claim there was a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Moscow, also citing an earlier Justice Department policy that it prohibits the formal impeachment of a sitting president.
The points which hindered this investigation concerned a analysis of constitutional law and the extension of presidential power.
But prosecutors in the Mar-a-Lago investigation largely dismissed the relevance of Trump’s status as a former president, saying during a lawsuit surrounding the independent expert that the secret registers which he had access as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces they don’t belong to you yet.
And the Appeals Panel last week, it said, rejected the notion that Trump had the right to have the documents seized from his home returned or examined by an independent expert, which it said would create an “exempt special”.
The investigation into the documents had been ongoing for months before coming into the public eye with an Aug. 8 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, in which agents removed approximately 100 secret classified documents.
By then, Justice Department officials say they had developed probable cause to believe the related crimes the withholding of information on national defense, as well as obstruction.
Since then, the investigation has shown signs of being accelerating: The Justice Department presented evidence before a grand jury and last month granted immunity to a Trump ally to secure his testimony.
Jack Smith, the attorney
The investigation is being led by Jack Smith, who formerly headed the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section and most recently served as its chief executive officer. war crimes prosecutor in The Hague.
Smith is also overseeing key aspects of a separate Justice Department investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies nullify the results of the 2020 presidential election. The District Attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, is also separately investigating attempts to overturn that state’s findings.
Smith’s nomination by Attorney General Merrick Garland came three days after Trump declared his candidacy for the White House. The announcement won’t stop the investigation, though it could speed up the pace to avoid disrupting the 2024 presidential race at its peak.
His candidacy could, conceivably, make the investigation more important, said Franklin Monsour Jr., a former federal prosecutor, given that he is no longer just a former president.
“Now it’s about someone trying to be president again and seeks to repossess national security material,” he said.
The risks of moving forward with the case
However, legal experts expect the Justice Department to consider more than just the strength of the evidence when deciding whether to proceed with the case.
There will be questions about how much secret evidence can you present to a jury, and the ability to choose an impartial jury given the ubiquitous name recognition of Trump and passionate reactions which produces on both sides.
Even the trial of a former president risks being seen as something politicalfurther polarizing an already divided country, as well as giving the court a circus-like atmosphere.
“Basically, it’s about weighing up the principle that no individual is above the law address the practical political consequences that these types of charges will bring against a former president, especially one who is running for president once again,” Mintz said.
“It’s a choice extraordinarily difficult” He added.
By Eric Tucker, Associated Press
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Source: Clarin
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.