Donald Trump indicted in classified documents probe

Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury in the investigation into his handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Donald Trump at a Make America Great Again rally in Manchester, New Hampshire. Picture: AFP.

Former US president Donald Trump has been indicted in the federal probe over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social as he broke what would be bombshell news that he has been charged criminally for the second time.

CNN reports that sources confirmed Mr Trump had been indicted, while ABC News reported the former president faced at least seven charges, ranging from the willful retention of national defence information to conspiracy to a “scheme to conceal to false statements and representations.”

Mr Trump wrote on social media that he was “INNOCENT.”

The former president has been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, according to ABC news.

The federal charges deepen Mr Trump’s legal peril just as the 2024 presidential race heats up, with Mr Trump as the front-runner for the Republican nomination. He already faces criminal charges in New York stemming from the Manhattan district attorney’s investigation into his role in a hush-money payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election.

A local prosecutor in Georgia, meanwhile, said she plans to present criminal charges in August related to efforts by Mr Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election there. Mr Trump has denied wrongdoing in all three matters, and accused prosecutors of pursuing him for political reasons.

The federal indictment is the first to emanate from a probe by special counsel Jack Smith, the former war-crimes and public-corruption prosecutor that Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed to take over two inquiries related to Mr Trump after he in November announced another bid for the White House.

In addition to the documents inquiry, Mr Smith’s team is pursuing a separate investigation into efforts by Mr Trump and his allies to overturn his 2020 election loss, and how those efforts related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr Smith’s team has issued subpoenas and obtained grand jury testimony in recent weeks indicating that the inquiry is focused on Mr Trump’s fundraising after the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the investigation.

While the Jan. 6 investigation has been under way for more than two years, the documents probe dates to early 2022, when the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes of documents and other items from Mar-a-Lago that should have been transferred from the White House, and found they contained more than 100 classified records. The Justice Department sought to recover all additional classified documents that might still be at the Florida property through a subpoena. After a Trump representative said the former president had turned over the remaining documents, the FBI obtained evidence that more such papers were on the premises, and agents last August executed an extraordinary search warrant and recovered hundreds more.

Over ensuing months, Mr Smith’s team interviewed nearly every employee at Mr Trump’s Florida home as part of the documents probe, from top political aides to maids and maintenance staff, The Wall Street Journal reported.

In recent months, Mr Smith’s team has homed in on several key pieces of evidence, including an audio recording in which Mr Trump acknowledged he kept a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, and extensive notes from one of his lawyers about the investigation, people familiar with the matter have said.

Mr Trump’s lawyers met with Justice Department officials on June 5 to try to head off an indictment.

The case comes as a separate special counsel is examining how and why classified documents dating to President Biden’s time as vice president were found at his home and office. The Justice Department closed a third inquiry on June 1 into similar documents found at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home.

AFP, Dow Jones