As Trump announces Presidential bid, a peek into his controversies & investigations

From controversies to investigations, it seems like there is nothing that is holding back Donald Trump from joining the 2024 Presidential race. On Tuesday, the former US President delivered a lengthy speech to announce his Presidential bid. "I am running because we have not seen the full glory of this country yet. In order to make America great and glorious again, I tonight am announcing my candidacy for president of the United States," he said as he commenced the address. 

Here, we take a look at the most noteworthy scandals and probes that continue to lurk behind Trump as he takes a step toward the White House. 

The January 6 riot 

The January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol remains by far, the biggest scandal that has contributed to Trump’s fall from grace. In 2021, the erstwhile President incited violence by refusing to accept his election defeat, which caused Trump supporters to storm the Capitol building in a violent attack. This led to the formation of the US House Select Committee, which began public hearings to investigate the attack in July 2021. 

In the final hearing, the committee members voted to subpoena Trump and demanded he appears before the committee by mid-November, which the former president denied doing and instead, sued the committee in order to prevent testifying. 

The White House records

Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, which became the venue of his announcement on Tuesday, was searched by federal officers on August 8 due to the documents that Trump brought with him after he left the White House. The agents were ordered to seize “physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation” of three criminal laws, Independent reported. 

A  federal court judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, then called for the review of the documents and briefly blocked the US Department of Justice from accessing the material for any probe until the completion of the review. Later on, a panel of three judges said that it was crucial to “determine whether any of the records were improperly disclosed, risking national security damage.” At present, a review is ongoing, while Trump claims that he possessed the right to declassify the documents. 

The Georgia Election

Fani Willis, the district attorney of Georgia’s Fulton County, is looking into the attempts that were made to reverse Trump’s election defeat in the state in 2021, after which he forced Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,000 votes that could overturn the outcome. 

In May this year, a grand jury of 23 people was impaneled. The jury subpoenaed multiple people from Trump’s legal team, such as John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham, and Jenna Ellis. The attorney told the Republican “alternate” electors in Georgia that they could receive criminal charges on the grounds of pledging to falsely certify Trump’s election and declaring themselves as the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors in spite of Joe Biden’s win.