Classified Mar-a-Lago papers further complicate Trump's court landscape

Applause, welcome signs, cheers and a room packed with supporters who drank in every word of a speech riddled with alleged grievances.

The site was Mar-a-Lago, the residence of Donald Trump in Florida.

The moment, the first act —a rally— of the former president of the United States after appearing before a judge to respond to 34 accusations of falsifying corporate documents.

Electoral candidate Trump has opted for a strategy that at the moment seems to be paying off: presenting himself as the victim of a political persecution that extends to the courts.

But the imputed Trump may find that bet complicated:

Even if Trump sticks out his chest now, things can change.

The candidate to return to the White House has several criminal investigations and civil cases pending.

Some of them, with a firmer legal basis than the case of New York, in the opinion of the experts, who point out that the result may depend on how the laws are interpreted.

Some of these pending investigations have advanced substantially in recent weeks, to such an extent that those responsible could well decide to also indict Trump later this year, and that the tycoon sits on the defendant bench even sooner. on December 4, when he has his next court date in Manhattan for the

Among the cases that appear to have made the most progress is special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into classified documents the FBI found in a Mar-a-Lago search last year, three months after the Department of Justice would have ordered Trump's lawyers to return any classified material that the former president kept in his possession after leaving the White House.

Federal police officers found more than a hundred confidential papers.

A fresh reminder came Wednesday that Trump's legal troubles go far beyond the

.

His former vice president, Michael Pence, made it known that he will comply with a court order and testify before a grand jury in another Smith investigation.

This one, about the role that the former president played in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the efforts to prevent the transfer of power to the winner of the elections, Joe Biden.

Polls favor Trump

Despite these legal clouds, the polls are smiling for Trump for now.

An Ipsos poll indicated on Monday that 51% of US voters accept his thesis that his legal problems are the result of political persecution.

The coffers of his election campaign have received a constant flow of donations since Thursday last week it was learned that a grand jury had approved charging him in New York: four million dollars (3.6 million euros) in the first 24 hours , and three million more before the hearing before Judge Juan Manuel Merchan began.

25% of these amounts, coming from people who had not previously given money to the Trump campaign.

The former president was already the undisputed favorite to win the Republican Party's candidacy for the 2024 presidential elections. Now, even more so.

The Ipsos poll, the first after the impeachment, indicates that 48% of the voters of that formation want Trump to be their candidate, compared to 44% who wanted it before he was imputed.

His immediate supporter, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, drops from 30% to 19%.

His pull among the public extends to the media: the big news networks dedicated special programming to the appearance in the New York courts.

They also aired the Mar-a-Lago speech in its entirety, something increasingly rare in an era of stiff competition for fragmented audiences.

With these numbers and these perspectives, the space for other Republican politicians to jump into the ring to compete against Trump in the primaries is increasingly narrow.

DeSantis, whose candidacy was taken for granted before the indictment, has not even confirmed that he will run.

Others who have done so — former Governor Nikky Halley or billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy — barely appear on voters' radar, with voting intentions of less than 10%.

These favorable winds can change.

A variety of unrelated indictments from all stripes of cases would make it harder for Trump to sell Republican supporters the idea that he is a victim of a political witch hunt.

He would also make it very difficult for him to win the independent vote, essential for any candidate who wants to reach the White House.

Jack Smith, the special prosecutor investigating the case of the classified documents, handles, according to

, the key testimony of one of Trump's assistants at Mar-a-Lago.

This indicates that, after the return order was received, boxes with those documents were moved by order of the former president.

Apparently, according to that testimony, the tycoon also personally examined the papers, driven by the apparent desire to keep some.

The assistant's statements coincide with what recordings from closed-circuit cameras show on the hotel property, points out the

citing sources of the investigation.

If confirmed, these data would support the thesis that Smith is investigating: that Trump intentionally obstructed justice to keep classified documents.

US law obliges all outgoing presidents to hand over to the National Archives the documents they have handled during their term.

Even so, it is not uncommon for some to be misplaced and appear later.

The current president, Joe Biden, is also under investigation by a special prosecutor after a series of papers appeared in his private home and a former office of his.

The key to whether this constitutes a crime is the intention with which those materials were preserved.

In addition to the federal investigations, Trump also has another case pending in Georgia.

There, the prosecutor Fani Willis, of Democratic affiliation, plans to decide in the coming weeks if she charges the former president with attempts to alter the results of the 2020 presidential elections in that State.

defiant attitude

If Trump appeared in the courtroom annoyed on Tuesday, with a sullen gesture, on Wednesday he continued the defiant attitude he exhibited at Mar-a-Lago.

Although his imputation is the responsibility of the Manhattan courts, on his social network he has urged to cut the budget of the Department of Justice and the FBI.

“REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS SHOULD DEFUND JUSTICE AND THE FBI UNTIL THEY COME TO THEIR REASON,” he wrote.

It is unlikely that any other American politician could prosper in his career with this attitude.

He certainly won't fight for the White House with an impeachment trailing behind him.

But Trump is not a typical politician.

He is a master of chaos and disruption, who knows how to perfectly read his audience and take advantage of any loophole to take advantage in whatever way.

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