CNN
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Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts of examining classified documents by the special counsel, a surprising development that marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges.
Trump faces an indictment under the Espionage Act, his lawyer Jim Trusty told CNN Thursday, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.
The special counsel is investigating Trump’s handling of classified documents brought to his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort after he leaves the White House in 2021, as well as possible obstruction of the investigation and government efforts to obtain them. the material.
The former president wrote to Truth Social that the Justice Department informed him that he was indicted and that he was “summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 p.m.”
“The corrupt Biden Administration has notified my lawyers that I am being indicted, apparently for the Boxes Hoax,” Trump wrote.
Trusty told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Trump’s lawyers received an email from the Justice Department on Thursday listing the charges, but have not yet seen the indictment.
He called the Espionage Act lawsuit “ridiculous.”
In a sign of how tightly the special counsel is keeping word of the indictment under wraps, the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Marshals received no advance notice and were surprised by Trump’s announcement on social media, law enforcement officials said. of the law on Thursday.
Law enforcement is now scrambling to prepare for an expected court appearance next week in Miami, and the Justice Department is mobilizing additional resources there, officials said.
The special counsel and the Justice Department did not make any public statements Thursday, and a spokeswoman declined to comment.
The federal indictment is the second time Trump has been criminally charged this year. In April, the Manhattan district attorney charged Trump with 34 counts of business fraud.
But the indictment from the special counsel marks a new and more dangerous legal phase for a former president, who will run for president again in 2024 while facing criminal charges in both jurisdiction – and there are two additional investigations into his conduct that are still ongoing.
The charges against Trump come just seven months since Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel after Trump announced he was running for president, to continue the investigation independent of the Biden Justice Department.
Now Trump will face federal charges from the special counsel at the same time he is trying to unseat President Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election.
The White House declined to comment Thursday night.
Trump has blamed the special counsel’s investigation and other probes into his conduct, claiming they were all efforts to stop him politically. The former president insisted that any criminal charges will not stop his 2024 campaign.
Trump released a four-minute video on Thursday night repeating many of his previous claims, including that the Justice Department was armed and that the investigations into him were “election interference.”
“I am an innocent person. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Trump said in the video.
Trump has long avoided legal blame in his personal, professional and political life. He has settled numerous private civil cases over the years and paid his way out of disputes over the Trump Organization. As president, he was twice impeached by the Democratic-led House, but avoided conviction in the Senate.
But after leaving office, the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of classified information at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election cast dark clouds over the Trump. Smith’s January 6 investigation and efforts to overturn the election are still ongoing.
And in addition to the Manhattan district attorney’s indictment in April, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to announce in August whether there are any charges in her investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. .
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Trump’s congressional allies quickly rallied to his defense on social media, just as they did when Trump was impeached in New York in April.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted that it was a “dark day for the United States of America.”
“It is unreasonable for a President to impeach the leading candidate who opposes him. Joe Biden has kept classified documents for decades,” said the California Republican.
“The radical Far Left will stop at nothing to interfere in the 2024 election to support Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency and desperate campaign,” said House GOP conference chairwoman Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican. , said in a statement.
“Sad day for America. God bless President Trump,” Tweet House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican.
Trump’s aides and advisers feel emboldened by the indictment and “willing to fight,” a person who spoke to Trump Thursday told CNN.
But while Trump and some of his aides may feel emboldened now, others close to the former president expressed concern and reservations about the accusation.
Despite potentially giving Trump a boost in the polls and fundraising that could help the former president in the Republican primary, many top advisers are aware of the risk associated with a federal indictment and believe it could harm Trump in the long term.
Trump’s federal indictment will once again make the 2024 GOP primary all about the former president, even in a week where several candidates have entered the race. Before Thursday’s indictment, several Republican opponents of Trump said the DOJ should not indict the former president, including Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence at a town hall in CNN on Wednesday.
For at least one of the Republicans running in the anti-Trump lane, however, Thursday’s indictment is a reason Trump should drop out of the race.
“While Donald Trump has the right to the presumption of innocence, the ongoing criminal proceedings will be a major distraction. It reaffirms the need for Donald Trump to respect the office and end his campaign,” said the candidate in GOP presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson.
Many Democrats who have investigated Trump during his presidency say Thursday’s indictment shows that no one is above the rule of law.
“Trump’s apparent indictment on multiple charges stemming from his retention of classified materials is yet another confirmation of the rule of law. For four years, he has acted as if he is above the law. But he deserves to be treated like other lawbreakers. And now, he has,” wrote Rep. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who led Trump’s first House impeachment in 2019.
The Justice Department’s investigation into Trump’s actions related to documents from his time in office exploded publicly in August when FBI agents executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago and seized the thousands of documents, including about 100 marked as classified. The FBI also subpoenaed the Trump Organization for surveillance video from the resort.
Prosecutors said in court filings that they are pursuing possible criminal mishandling of national security information and obstruction of justice. The DOJ previously alleged that classified documents were “likely hidden and removed” from a storage room at Mar-a-Lago as part of an effort to “obstruct” the FBI’s investigation into potential mishandling by Trump on classified materials.
After Trump returned 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives in January, the Justice Department subpoenaed Trump in May, requesting documents with classification marks still at Mar-a-Lago.
According to a lawsuit he later filed, Trump ordered his staff to search for any remaining classified material to comply with the subpoena. After federal investigators seized the documents from the resort in June, his lawyers later told investigators that they had searched the storage area and accounted for all the classified documents.
Prosecutors said in August that some of the documents were likely removed from a storage room before Trump’s lawyers searched the area, as they tried to comply with the subpoena.
In recent months, prosecutors have heard from dozens of witnesses, including Trump aides and employees of Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Organization. Most of the witnesses appeared before a grand jury in Washington, DC, but in recent weeks several witnesses testified before a grand jury in south Florida.
Prosecutors obtained an audio tape of Trump talking about a classified Pentagon document during the 2021 Bedminster, New Jersey, meeting. In the recording, which was first reported by CNN, Trump acknowledged that the document is still classified, downplaying his argument that everything he brought with him to Mar-a-Lago was declassified.
This story has been updated with additional developments.