The latest criminal charges against former US president Donald Trump are just a politically-motivated attempt sop him re-taking the White House in 2024, says a legal expert.
Trump was charged this week under official secrets and espionage law for keeping copies of White House documents — which, as president, he had the power to de-classify — at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida.
Following his initial hearing in Miami on Tuesday, Trump told a rally of supporters at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey the indictment was "political persecution" and vowed to "totally obliterate the deep state" if re-elected in 2024.
Law professor Tim Canova told Sputnik that Trump was facing "a really weak indictment."
"I've been reading through it. It seems like they're trying to bootstrap an alleged violation of the Presidential Documents Act and make it into an obstruction of justice," Canova pointed out. "And they're doing it by relying on breaching the attorney client privilege and quoting, in the indictment, one of Trump's lawyers for something that I'm not even quite sure constitutes a crime in any way."
Addressing the allegation that Trump's enemies were resorting to "lawfare", the academic defined it as "[t]he use of the legal process to achieve political objectives and to win at all costs, even if it means sacrificing long cherished legal protections."
"We had four years of the Trump presidency where the political witch hunt was really done through Congress, through two impeachments and the Mueller investigation," Canova said. "And we saw during that process that the accused, President Trump, was presumed guilty, didn't have the right to really put on a defense before the House impeachment Committee, all kinds of due process violations"
"What's changed is the venue's move from the Congress to the courts," he added.
Trump has also been charged and arraigned in New York on faces charges of campaign finance violations and obstructing justice.
"The basis of the indictment is that he didn't keep good business records or something like that," Canova said. "They're obviously fishing for a reason. And so is this federal indictment fishing for reasons to stop him from running for president."
The activist said the "political indictment" of Trump was a symptom of the general abandonment of reason when it comes to the former president.
"I find it incredible that people cannot have a rational discussion," Canova lamented. "Their hatred for Donald Trump exceeds all kind of metrics. Their love of country, their good sense on medical issues, you know, medical freedom, First Amendment freedoms, everything is trumped by their hatred for Trump."
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