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RFI interviewed Julien Tourreille, a researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand professorship at the University of Quebec in Montreal, about the decision of the New York Prosecutor’s Office to indict former President Trump for an alleged black payment to buy the silence of a porn actress in 2016 This specialist explains that there is nothing in the US Constitution that prevents Trump from running in the next elections after this court decision.
Although Trump has become the first former president of the United States who will have to answer before the criminal justice of that country, his indictment does not throw away his aspiration to the White House, explains Julien Toureille, interviewed by RFI. “There is nothing in the law or in the US Constitution that prevents them from doing so. An accused person, even a defendant, can stand for election.” This specialist believes that this is one of the gaps in the American Constitution.
On the contrary, this decision has allowed Trump to gain points with respect to his presumed Republican adversary Ron DeSantis. “There is no doubt that this decision is going to be an incentive for his base,” says Tourreille. For the moment, in any case, the Republican Party as a whole has come out to support him. Trump, meanwhile, calls himself the victim of a witch hunt.
At the moment, the formal indictment is not available. It is not known exactly what crimes Trump will be accused of. But Tourreille explains that what he is accused of, according to what is known to date, is having falsified commercial documents, since he reimbursed his lawyer, who had paid the sum to the porn actress Stormy Daniels, falsifying the accounts of one of their companies. That forgery, according to Manhattan prosecutors, would have generated a violation of the laws on the financing of electoral campaigns. It would be, then, two crimes.
Both Trump’s lawyers and his entourage have announced that they will respond favorably to the summons of the Manhattan court. He will likely report to authorities in Manhattan early next week, perhaps Tuesday. There is therefore no foreseeable rejection by the former president or a legal conflict between the jurisdiction of Manhattan and that of Florida, where Trump currently resides.
Tourreille also underlines that Ron DeSantis, Florida governor and Trump’s probable rival in the Republican Party primaries for the 2024 elections, announced that he would not collaborate with the Manhattan authorities and that he would finally refuse to hand the former president over to the justice of NY. Therefore, a long legal battle can be expected which, obviously, will mean that the matter will not be resolved before the 2024 presidential elections, concludes Tourreille.
