Trump charged over classified documents in 1st federal indictment of an ex-president
Donald Trump has said that he has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, igniting a federal prosecution that is arguably the most perilous of multiple legal threats against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
The Justice Department did not immediately publicly confirm the indictment. But two people familiar with the situation who were not authorised to discuss it publicly said that the indictment included seven criminal counts. One of those people said Trump's lawyers were contacted by prosecutors shortly before he announced on his Truth Social platform that he had been indicted.
The indictment enmeshes the Justice Department in the most politically explosive prosecution in its long history. Its first case against a former president upends a Republican presidential primary that Trump is currently dominating, and any felony charges would raise the prospect of a yearslong prison sentence. (AP)
According to CNN reports, Walt Nauta, an assistant to former President Donald Trump has been formally charged regarding the mishandling of classified documents originating from the Trump White House. This indictment against Nauta marks the second in the ongoing investigation, following Trump's own indictment on seven counts today.
According to an audio transcript obtained by CNN, Former President Donald Trump admitted during a recorded meeting in 2021 that he possessed undisclosed military information that had not been declassified, referring to it as "secret."
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Two lawyers representing former US President Donald Trump, who was federally indicted for illegally retaining classified documents, obstruction and other crimes, have resigned, according to a statement released Friday. "This morning we tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation," according to the joint statement from Jim Trusty and John Rowley. (Reuters)
If Trump is charged, that won’t legally affect his ability to run for the post of President. There are no legal obstacles to running for president as a convicted felon or even from behind bars, reported Politico. Here's what happens now...
Former US President Donald Trump was gathered with his core political advisers in the office near his poolside cottage at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, when his phone rang around 7 pm on Thursday. On the line, according to two people with knowledge of the call, was one of his lawyers, informing him he had been indicted for the second time in less than three months.
Unlike the first indictment — in a state court in Manhattan related to allegations he had paid hush money to a porn actress during the 2016 election — the current charges were federal, and stemmed from his conduct just before leaving office and for roughly 18 months after.
Trump, always compartmentalising, immediately moved to a political reaction. (Read more)
Besides the hush-money case in which he has been indicted by a Manhattan grand jury — and in which he is likely to be arraigned on Tuesday — former President Donald Trump faces indictment in at least three other criminal investigations that are currently ongoing.
Beyond the alleged false accounting for hush money payments to a pornographic film actress who said she had an affair with him, Trump is under investigation by a special counsel in Washington DC for his role in seeking to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election, and for his potential mishandling of classified documents that travelled to his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, from the White House. And a special grand jury in Georgia that investigated election interference in the state by Trump and his allies has recommended indictments for multiple people in a report that remains mostly sealed. (Read more)
The Justice Department and Homeland Security are sending additional federal agents to Miami ahead of Trump’s expected court appearance in the coming days, a person familiar with the matter told the AP.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the sensitive security plans. Trump said he is due in court Tuesday afternoon there.
Meanwhile, the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington were quiet late Thursday, with few people in the hallways and no public sign of Attorney General Merrick Garland. (AP)
Many of Trump's challengers for the GOP nomination jumped to his defense Thursday night after news of the indictment broke.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump's top rival for the 2024 nomination, accused the Justice Department of political bias in charging the former president.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said he felt the justice system’s “scales are weighted” based on politics. “In America, every single person is presume innocent, not guilty,” Scott said on Fox News, decrying “the weaponisation of the Department of Justice against the former president.”
Biotech entrepreneur and “anti-woke” activist Vivek Ramaswamy said the federal case was part of “an affront to every citizen.” Reiterating his comments that he would pardon Trump, Ramaswamy called it “hypocritical for the DOJ to selectively prosecute Trump but not” Biden over his own classified documents case.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who called for Trump to drop out of the race after the New York charges were filed, said the federal indictment marked “a sad day for our country” and “reaffirms the need for Donald Trump to respect the office and end his campaign.”
Former Vice President Mike Pence said earlier Thursday that if Trump were to be indicted, he would hope the Justice Department had strong evidence — a shift in tone from the night before, when he said he hoped Trump wouldn’t be charged even if evidence is clear he committed a crime. (AP)
Jack Smith, the US special counsel who has pursued criminal charges against former US President Donald Trump over retention of classified government records, has earned a reputation for winning tough cases against war criminals, mobsters and crooked cops. Here's what we know of him:
? Smith is a Harvard Law School grad who is not registered with any political party.
? He started as a prosecutor in 1994 at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office under Robert Morgenthau, who was best known for prosecuting mob bosses. In 1999, Smith started working at the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.
? In 2008, Smith left to supervise war crime prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He returned to the Justice Department in 2010 to head its Public Integrity Section until 2015.
? When Smith is not busy competing in Ironman swim-cycle-run triathlon races, according to his former colleagues, he is working as a dogged investigator who is open-minded and not afraid to pursue the truth. (Reuters)
Reacting to Trump's indictment, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the US justice system should rebut what appears to be differential enforcement.
"There does seem to be far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics. Very important that the justice system rebut what appears to be differential enforcement or they will lose public trust," he wrote on Twitter.
Yes, but the circumstances of their cases are vastly different from the situation involving Trump.
After classified documents were found at Biden's think tank and Pence's Indiana home, their lawyers notified authorities and quickly arranged for them to be handed over. They also authorised other searches by federal authorities to search for additional documents. There is no indication either was aware of the existence of the records before they were found, and no evidence has so far emerged that Biden or Pence sought to conceal the discoveries. That’s important because the Justice Department historically looks for willfulness in deciding whether to bring criminal charges.
A special counsel was appointed earlier this year to probe how classified materials ended up at Biden’s Delaware home and former office. But even if the Justice Department were to find Biden’s case prosecutable on the evidence, its Office of Legal Counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office. As for Pence, the Justice Department informed his legal team earlier this month that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against him over his handling of the documents. (AP)
No. Neither the indictment itself nor a conviction would prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.
And as the New York case showed, criminal charges have historically been a boon to his fundraising. The campaign announced that it had raised over $4 million in the 24 hours after that indictment became public, far smashing its previous record after the FBI search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. (AP)
An indictment is the formal charge brought against someone after a grand jury — which is made up of members of the community — votes and enough members agree there's sufficient evidence to charge someone with a crime.
The indictment against Trump remains sealed. But once the document is made public, it will lay out the crime or crimes that Trump is accused of committing. Sometimes indictments include a lengthy narrative with lots of details about the allegations, while others are more basic and just outline the charges a defendant is facing. (AP)
Last year, US Attorney General Merrick Garland picked Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption probes, to lead investigations into the presence of classified documents at Trump's Florida estate, as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.
Smith's appointment was a recognition by Garland of the politics involved in an investigation into a former president and current White House candidate. Garland himself was selected by Democratic President Joe Biden, whom Trump is seeking to challenge for the White House in 2024.
Special counsels are appointed in cases in which the Justice Department perceives itself as having a conflict or where it's deemed to be in the public interest to have someone outside the government come in and take responsibility for a matter.
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking,” as well as “an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies.” (AP)
Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration reached out to representatives for Trump in spring 2021 when they realized that important material from his time in office was missing from their collection.
According to the Presidential Records Act, White House documents are considered property of the US government and must be preserved. A Trump representative told the National Archives in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago. In January 2022, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida home, later telling Justice Department officials that they contained “a lot” of classified material.
That May, the FBI and Justice Department issued a subpoena for remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Investigators who went to visit the property weeks later to collect the records were given roughly three dozen documents and a sworn statement from Trump’s lawyers attesting that the requested information had been returned.
But that assertion turned out to be false. With a search warrant, federal officials returned to Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized more than 33 boxes and containers totalling 11,000 documents from a storage room and an office, including 100 classified documents. In all, roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top-secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021. (AP)
Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration reached out to representatives for Trump in spring 2021 when they realized that important material from his time in office was missing from their collection.
According to the Presidential Records Act, White House documents are considered property of the US government and must be preserved. A Trump representative told the National Archives in December 2021 that presidential records had been found at Mar-a-Lago. In January 2022, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s Florida home, later telling Justice Department officials that they contained “a lot” of classified material.
That May, the FBI and Justice Department issued a subpoena for remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession. Investigators who went to visit the property weeks later to collect the records were given roughly three dozen documents and a sworn statement from Trump’s lawyers attesting that the requested information had been returned.
But that assertion turned out to be false. With a search warrant, federal officials returned to Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 and seized more than 33 boxes and containers totalling 11,000 documents from a storage room and an office, including 100 classified documents. In all, roughly 300 documents with classification markings — including some at the top-secret level — have been recovered from Trump since he left office in January 2021. (AP)
Donald Trump revealed the news of his indictment on Truth Social, an alternative social media platform that he migrated to following his now-revoked Twitter ban. Here's what he wrote.
Trump has been charged with seven counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to two people familiar with the indictment but not authorised to speak publicly about it. The charges themselves are unclear and remain under seal, one person said.
Trump announced Thursday night on his social media site Truth Social that Justice Department lawyers had informed his legal team that he had been indicted. He said he is due in court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. It was not immediately clear if anyone else would be charged in the case. (AP)
In the first reaction from the Republican party, US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the chamber's top Republican, said that the indictment of Donald Trump was a "dark day" for the United States and that he stood with the former President.
"House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponisation of power accountable," he wrote on Twitter.
The Justice Department took the legally and politically momentous step of lodging federal criminal charges against former President Donald Trump, multiple people familiar with the matter said Thursday. The charges follow a lengthy investigation of his handling of classified documents that he took with him upon leaving office and into whether he obstructed the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
The indictment, filed in US District Court in Miami, is the first time in American history a former president has faced federal charges. It puts the nation in an extraordinary position, given Trump’s status not only as a onetime chief executive but also as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination to face President Joe Biden, whose administration will now be seeking to convict his potential rival. (Read more)