Katlego Sekhu

Donald Trump has been indicted again, this time in connection with his handling of classified documents after he left the White House. Political Analyst and International Relations Lecturer at the University of Pretoria, Dr Sithembile Mbete, joined 959 Breakfast to unpack what precedence this sets for presidents around the world.
All countries have some form of classification. These are documents that should only be seen by certain people. They’ll range from confidential right up to top-secret. Donald Trump is now facing 27 criminal counts of having unauthorized access to classified documents.
The issue here is that the documents Trump had access to were from when he was President of the United States, and then he left with them. Because he is no longer president of the United States, he is not allowed to have those documents with him.
Dr Mbete highlights that the US has a very strict system of document management. “All those documents should be in the US’s national archive. So he committed a criminal offense by taking those documents offsite from the White House, not declaring that he had them, and retaining those documents for as long as he had them,” she explained.
However, this might not halt his presidential campaign, as there is no law that states that one can’t run for president when facing criminal charges.
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