Two years after being the subject of a second impeachment process for his role in inciting the invasion of the Capitol, former US President Donald Trump recorded a single charity with a group of detainees who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack.
According to site from the magazine forbesthe potential beneficiaries are hundreds of Trump supporters who are facing financial difficulties to pay the costs of legal proceedings, with the exception of those who go on trial for having attacked Capitol police officers.
The song — titled justice for all (justice for all) — consists of a recording of Trump reciting the pledge of allegiance to the US flag, superimposed on the voices of two dozen men held in Washington DC jail, who present themselves as the January 6th Prison Chorus.
“This is a disinformation tactic straight out of the authoritarian leaders playbook — wrapping lies in patriotism,” he said on Twitter Barbara McQuade, professor of law at the University of Michigan.
“I had never felt such repulsion for a song as for this one, sung by a President who tried to carry out a coup d’état and by a chorus of insurrectionists who tried to help him”, he said the director of the non-governmental organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Government, also on Twitter.
A video of the song, illustrated with an image of an American flag seen from inside a cell, was released. published on Youtube; and the audio can be heard on the main platforms of streaming.
The song by Donald Trump and the Prison Choir of January 6th was promoted on Friday at podcast by Stephen K. Bannon, the American extreme right activist and former White House adviser.
Bannon, 69, was accused of fraud and money laundering in 2020 – and amnestyed by Trump in 2021 – on suspicion of having diverted for his own benefit, in 2018 and 2019, contributions from supporters of the then US President allegedly intended for the construction of an anti-immigration wall on the border with Mexico.
More than a thousand detainees
Since the storming of the Capitol, over a thousand people have been arrested and charged with various crimes, including conspiracy to incite an insurrection. On the day of the invasion, the two chambers of the US Congress were gathered in the Capitol building, in Washington DC, for the opening of the Electoral College votes – a ceremony, largely symbolic, in which Joe Biden was to be confirmed as President-elect of the USA.
After the ceremony was resumed, still on January 6, 2021, the Democratic Party announced the opening of a second impeachment process against Trump, accused of having been the main instigator of the attack, with the aim of remaining in the White House. despite the electoral defeat.
Trump would effectively be impeached by the House of Representatives on January 13, 2021, and would be acquitted a month later in the Senate, protected by the votes of a majority of Republican Party senators.
Despite not being removed from office in 2021 and having launched a new race for the White House with a view to the 2024 election, the former US President is the subject of two criminal proceedings for his role in the invasion of the Capitol – one launched by the Department of Justice and led by Special Counsel Jack Smith; and another ongoing in the state of Georgia, led by District Attorney Fani Willis.
At the same time, Trump is also the subject of a criminal investigation for having withheld thousands of White House documents in his Florida mansion, and other lawsuits related to his business in New York and an accusation of rape filed by the writer E .Jean Carroll.