Donald Trump says he’s been indicted for mishandling classified documents, becoming the first former US president to ever face a federal charge.
Trump made the claim in a post to the social media platform Truth Social on Friday morning, Australian time.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump’s statement began.
“I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3PM.”
“I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!” he added.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment made by Reuters.
A representative for Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Justice Department official who is handling the investigation, declined to comment.
Trump faces seven criminal counts in the federal case, a source told Reuters.
The indictment remains under seal, and even Trump himself has not yet seen what it says.
According to The New York Times, Trump would be the first former president in US history to face federal charges.
It comes just two months after Trump was charged by the Manhattan district attorney’s office over alleged illegal hush payments to a porn actress and a model. He pleaded not guilty to 34 charges in that matter.
He’s also facing several other probes, including one in Washington looking into his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and an investigation in Georgia over whether he and his allies interfered in that state’s 2020 election.
The new federal charges concern allegations Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office by keeping and storing them at his Palm Beach property Mar-a-Lago.
Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith has also been investigating whether Trump tried to obstruct the government’s efforts to find the records, the Associated Press reported.
Investigators seized roughly 13,000 documents from Mar-a-Lago almost a year ago.
One hundred were marked as classified, even though one of Trump’s lawyers had previously said all records with classified markings had been returned to the government.
Trump has previously defended his retention of documents, suggesting he declassified them while president.
However, Trump has not provided evidence of this and his lawyers have declined to make that argument in court filings.
President from 2017 to 2021, Trump is the front-runner in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Through the years Trump has shown an uncanny ability to weather controversies that might torpedo other politicians.
He describes himself as the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt and accuses the Justice Department of partisan bias.
Trump’s lead has grown over his rivals in the Republican nominating contest since he was indicted in the New York case, polling shows.
With additional reporting from AAP.
Just need to get him on the stand and ask a few open-ended questions, the rest will take care of itself.
Trump would be any Prosecutors wet dream……………….
…….a compulsive liar with the attention span of a cabbage.
And intellect.
He’d deadset try and go the full Col. Jessep I reckon.
The first of many. Trump will spend the rest of his life defending court proceedings of one form or another.
The Special Counsel will have a evidence filled case, and Trump will have difficulties defending this crime.
All the people and small businesses he has destroyed over the years will be pleased to see karma.
Good riddance.
I won’t cheer until he’s in a Gen. Pop. cell at Rykers
I’d take a bet on Brother Jared fixing a quick flight to Israel. To seek asylum. They owe him for the Jerusalem embassy shift. Donny is always transactional.
Donny has already spent his entire business life defending, time wasting and frequently, settling at the last moment.
What makes this different is the Espionage Act. There was a time when a sniff of espionage was enough to bury any political ambitions but now…meh.
To see the once gung-ho Republicans treating this so casually, buggers my brain.
Over to Democracy’s shining beacon to see how much they truly value democracy.
The Australian Constitution disqualifies from Parliament anybody who has been convicted of a crime carrying a sentence of one year’s jail or more but it seems there is no such provision in the US. This should alarm the rest of the world given that somehow Trump is leading in the Republican race for nomination.
There is always a chance that the policy of denigrating Biden for his age will cause voters to turn away from him or not turn up to vote, and we (the world) will end up with 4 more years of Trump. I hope somebody in the US can come up with a legal means of disqualifying him before this happens.
Apparently this was not considered when the American Constitution was written.
There is only three qualifying matters that apply and being a walking talking criminal is not one.
If he’s in jail, he’s not in the white house
I think I read an article in The Conversation explaining that he can be president from a jail cell.
It would pose a unique problem for his Secret Service guard detail………………..
……..who gets to go out for the Macca’s and Coke, the Screws or the Secret Service?
If he’s in jail, he’s a martyr. Like Nelson Mandela. And if they Epstein’d him in jail – all hell!
Some of his Congress mob are already calling themselves political prisoners of the deep state.
There is always a chance that the policy of denigrating Biden…..”
That Policy worked here in Australia for Shorten in 2019.
That would be “..convicted of a crime carrying a sentence of o
neTWO year’s jail or more…” which is why the 2005 Customs airport whistleblower was unable to stand for the Senate in 2007 and subsequently.I am no fan of trump but such illegal acts seem to be common amongst ex Presidents. The law should be applied consistently and as such I suspect this is just a “Get Trump on any Trumped up charge.” activity.
No.
That is a false equivalent.
Former presidents have not held onto classified documents.
If they had they’d be charged.
Trump could have just returned the documents
“Such illegal acts seem to be common amongst ex Presidents”
A lot of things seem to be true to Trump’s flock: The election was stolen; the law is run by “left-wing extremists” if it doesn’t side with Trump; Covid can be cured by injecting bleach; globalism is evil unless you’re doing hotel deals overseas using global capital; killing cops is bad unless you kill them for Trump; the KKK aren’t racists; f*scists are as ‘good’ as people protesting racial injustice; and every ex-President stashed boxes of sensitive national security documents in the bathrooms of their holiday retreats after they left office.
What Trump and his MAGA elite say seems to be true, most likely isn’t.
Yep, you can’t vote but you can be President.
There is a difference between a President and a member of Parliament. I wouldn’t ban those convicted of a crime from public office, there are large discrepancies of policing in US.
May I suggest any American elector (and those who consider Donald Trump blemish free) read Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s 652 page tome ‘Trump in the White House 2017-2021; the Divider’, a blow by blow account of this charlatan’s mismanagement of those years. It should be mandatory for all MAGA followers and those contemplating voting for this narcissistic muppet. He shouldn’t be in gaol, better suited for a canvas sportscoat!
But that wouldn’t deter the majority of his supporters.
Mostly because they can’t read……………….
His cult followers dismiss anything that doesn’t support their conviction, and only see what’s in the mirrored info-silo. By choice. That is all that sets them apart from Putin supporters in Russia. They won’t accept Jack Smiths invitation to read the 40page indictment (I haven’t either, but I’m not a US elector) nor be reminded of his 2016 statement, “In my administration I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
A good take on the Trumpophile phenomena by Jack Macleod (on TC) who sees it as a survivalist trope.
So the US electoral college members are not regarded as being free to vote how they wish. Therefore there is no point for them to read ‘Trump in the White House’ or any other book. I wish you British would do your research before to sound off.
This is just a preview of the sort of garbage we will endure here if our politics continues to degenerate at the current rate. We really need to get more morallity responsible politicians with a genuine agenda to do the right thing instead of the morally bankrupt chancers that we keep getting.