By Jorge Elbaum* – Professor, University of Buenos Aires
The American political system, promoted by the globalized media as the imitable paradigm of the democratic system, is being corroded by the multiplication of scandals and accusations of corruption directed against its top political leaders, the current president Joe Biden and the Republican candidate Donald Trump. The accusations against both show a clear institutional deterioration, a drift of skepticism about government bodies and a decrease in geopolitical legitimacy at the international level.
The House of Representatives has decided, last week, to include in the debate of the Surveillance Commission an office voted by the majority to initiate an impeachment against the current president, under the accusation of enabling influence peddling in favor of his son. Hunter. According to the preliminary investigation, Hunter would have received more than $15 million from foreign companies and governments – between 2014 and 2019 – thanks to the support received by his father. Among the operations carried out by the president’s son are negotiations with the energy company Burisma, based in kyiv. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Hunter. In return, Trump offered financial aid to contribute to the ethnocide of Russian-speakers in the Donbas.
The initiative to begin the impeachment procedure was promoted by the leader of the Lower House, Kevin McCarthy, but requires, to be approved, the detailed presentation of charges. It should then be approved by the plenary session and subsequently debated in the Senate, where the Democrats have the majority. Republicans know that if the impeachment is not approved, it could be used to offset the legal offensive that Trump faces in an election year.
The former president is accused in five different trials. In the first – processed in New York state court since last October 2 – he is accused, along with two of his sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, for having falsified the value of the real estate assets of the family business to obtain bank loans. During the trial, the 77-year-old former president defined Judge Arthur Engoron, in charge of the case, as “crazy, totally unbalanced and a dangerous man.” In that same record he accused New York State Attorney General Letitia James of being “corrupt” and “racist.” This last epithet refers to the Afro-descendant origin of the prosecutor, whom Trump defines as responsible for discriminating against the WASP population, that is, white Americans.
The second case will begin on January 15, with a planned duration of two weeks, beginning on the same day that the Republican primaries are held in the State of Iowa. In this case, the defamation lawsuit filed by the writer Elizabeth will be elucidated. Jean Carroll, whom Trump already had to compensate for sexual assault and abuse. Carroll was convicted last May for the attempted rape that the former president committed in the dressing room of a clothing store in New York in 1996. The current Republican candidate asked to avoid this new complaint by relying on the presidential immunity he had when he insulted to the writer. Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump cannot appeal that prerogative.
The third cause is the most transcendent in terms of its consequences. Judge Tanya Chutkan is processing the accusation against Trump for the attempt to alter the electoral result of the 2020 elections. The prosecutor has requested that the trial begin on March 4, 2024. On that occasion, Trump invited his followers, on the 6th January 2021, to “fight like hell” and deny the results of the elections. The fourth case refers to the payments made to hide scandals that could have contaminated him in the 2016 presidential campaign. Among them, having bribed the pornographic actress Stormy Daniels, with 130 thousand dollars, to deny or silence sexual contacts with Trump of 2006, a few months after marrying Melania. This trial is expected to start on March 25, 2024. The fifth accusation refers to the violation of the Espionage Law and the obstruction of justice, due to the discovery of classified documents in the basement of his mansion in Mar- a-Lago, after leaving the White House. The judge of the Southern District of Florida ordered that the trial begin on May 20, 2024.
In 1835, the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville published the first volume Democracy in America, which described the American political system as a device based on ethical and representative pillars supported by civil society. It seems that its validity has been curtailed or buried.
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*Argentine sociologist, journalist, researcher and university professor. He was the first president of the Argentine Jewish Appeal, ambassador of the Argentine Foreign Ministry to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and directed the National Defense School. In Página12, Buenos Aires.
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