Donald Trump with folded arms in the Oval Office of the White House, August 27, 2018. -
Evan Vucci / AP / SIPA
Donald Trump leaves office at noon on Wednesday and will no longer benefit from presidential immunity.
He is targeted by half a dozen investigations, including the Manhattan prosecutor for possible tax and banking fraud.
Donald Trump could also be criminally concerned after the violence on the Capitol.
From our correspondent in the United States,
From noon this Wednesday (6 p.m. Paris time), Donald Trump becomes an almost ordinary citizen again.
And while he enjoyed immunity in principle during his tenure, the former US president will find himself under the threat of half a dozen judicial inquiries, some already well advanced.
Suspected tax evasion and payment to Stormy Daniels (criminal, New York)
Manhattan prosecutor Cyrus Vance has had Donald Trump in his sights for several years.
He is carrying out a sprawling investigation into his finances, which targets possible acts of tax and bank fraud, insurance scam and accounting manipulation.
Vance obtained, after a Supreme Court ruling, six years of tax returns from Donald Trump and Deutsche Bank executives were taken under oath.
For the former White House tenant, "this is the most serious threat", analyzes Brad Moss, a lawyer in Washington.
Because the investigation "is not based on the intentions of Donald Trump but almost exclusively on documents".
The Manhattan prosecutor had also investigated the payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Donald Trump had paid her $ 130,000 through his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen to buy her silence before the 2016 presidential election, when she was about to publicly affirm that they had had an affair.
In 2018, Cohen was sentenced (in another case) to three years in prison for tax evasion, but he was also charged with illegal campaign financing.
He had assured to have acted "on the orders of
individual-1
", who is none other than Donald Trump.
Technically, the investigation is now closed, but it could, in theory, be reopened.
With a five-year statute of limitations running since fall 2016, however, the schedule seems tight.
Trump Organization Investigation (civilian, New York)
Did the Trump Organization lie about the size of its assets to pay less taxes?
This is what New York State Attorney Letitia James seeks to determine.
This (civil) investigation could threaten Donald Trump, but also his children.
Justice is particularly interested in suspicious tax deductions that would correspond to consulting fees paid to Ivanka Trump.
Sexual assault charges (libel, civil)
Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by about twenty women, but most of the facts denounced are prescribed.
Two accusers, however, filed a defamation complaint, because Donald Trump publicly accused them of lying.
Former columnist E Jean Carroll, who claims she was raped by the ex-real estate mogul in the mid-1990s, is asking for a DNA sample to compare it to traces on the dress she kept.
The Trump administration's Justice Department appealed to block the proceedings, but they should be able to resume.
Just like the defamation complaint of Summer Zervos, a former candidate for
The Apprentice
who accuses Donald Trump of sexual assault.
The rest: Risks of prosecution for obstruction of justice, incitement to violence or electoral fraud
The Mueller report could resurface.
The special prosecutor appointed to investigate the links between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia had concluded that there was no collusion.
On the other hand, he had kicked in touch on the charge of obstruction of justice, explaining that he could not make a determination because of the immunity of a president.
The rest will undoubtedly depend on the attitude of Joe Biden's Justice Department.
Donald Trump will soon be tried in impeachment by the Senate after his impeachment for "incitement to insurgency" in the attack on the Capitol.
This is only a political procedure, which could earn him, in the event of conviction by two-thirds of the Senate, a symbolic dismissal and possible future ineligibility.
Criminal charges are not, however, excluded, assured the Colombian district justice minister.
Ditto in Georgia, with the Fulton County district attorney who could open an investigation for "incitement to electoral fraud" centered on Donald Trump's phone call to the secretary of state.
"I just want to find 11,780 votes", pleaded the American president on January 3, suggesting to the person in charge to "recalculate" the total.
For Chris Edelson, professor of political science at the University of Washington, "the Department of Justice of Joe Biden will undoubtedly not be zealous to prosecute his predecessor", but the local justice, in New York or in Georgia, could take in charge.
“Given the corruption and fraud charges against him, it is vital for democracy that Donald Trump is held to account.
"
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