Will US Justice Minister Merrick Garland go so far as to indict Donald Trump?
He is faced with a decision just as heavy as those he would have made in the high court: to prosecute a former president of the United States.
The 69-year-old former judge personally approved the FBI's August 8 spectacular search of Donald Trump's Florida home, and it's up to him to decide whether he should be charged.
This would be unprecedented for a former tenant of the White House: Richard Nixon had been pardoned by his successor Gerald Ford before an indictment was decided in the Watergate scandal.
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If Richard Nixon no longer had influence (he had resigned to avoid an almost certain dismissal), this is not the case for Donald Trump, whose hold on the Republican Party is such that he plans to run for a new term in 2024. “The very idea of indicting a former president for anything is quite extraordinary,” notes Steven Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Leads for Garland with the parliamentary inquiry committee
While the search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence appears to be linked to the presence of confidential documents, the former US president is also the target of investigations into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and his role in his supporters' assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The American billionaire has so far not been prosecuted in any of these cases, but the congressional commission of inquiry into the attack on Capitol Hill has given leads that Merrick Garland could follow.
The latter has enough political sense to weigh the risks, adds Steven Schwinn, but he also has other “difficult factors to take into consideration”.
“On the one hand, he must necessarily think about his mission, which is to enforce the law.
On the other hand, he knows that any criminal prosecution against Donald Trump will embolden his supporters, and that there has already been violence against federal agents, ”explains Steven Schwinn.
Democrats and Republicans are torn on the subject
Donald Trump and his Republican allies have previously accused Merrick Garland, who was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden, of "manipulating" the Justice Department for political purposes.
"Never anything comparable has happened to a former president of the United States", protested the ex-real estate mogul, saying he was the victim of a "witch hunt".
In the Democratic ranks, on the contrary, some have criticized Merrick Garland for delaying indicting a former president who, according to them, should be behind bars for having fomented an insurrection.
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Very concerned about compliance with the rules, Merrick Garland tries not to comment on the ongoing investigations of the Ministry of Justice.
But he was forced out of his reserve after the fury sparked by the search of Mar-a-Lago.
Recognizing an "important public interest", three months before the mid-term legislative elections, he underlined that this decision had not been taken "lightly" and that "the law applies to all fairly, without fear nor complacency.
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