Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face federal charges.The seven counts against the former president include conspiracy to obstruct, willful withholding of documents and false statements, according to people familiar with the indictment. He said he will hand it over to the authorities on Tuesday. The Justice Department made a legally and politically significant decision on Thursday to file federal criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing him of falsifying classified documents. kept after he left his job and blocked the government's efforts to get them back. Mr. Trump took to social media to accuse him. The charges against him include knowingly obtaining national security secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, perjury and conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to two people familiar with the matter. No comment from The Justice Department yet. The indictment, handed up by a grand jury in Miami Federal District Court, is the first time a former president has faced federal charges. This puts the country in a unique situation, given Mr. Trump is not only as the first commander-in-chief, but also as the current runner-up for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination against President Biden, whose administration will now be seeking to convict his potential rival of multiple felonies.
The indictment, filed by the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, comes nearly two months after New York City prosecutors filed more than 30 criminal charges against Mr Trump in connection with alleged payments made to porn stars before the 2016 election. Mr. Trump is still under investigation by Mr. Trump's office. Smith about his efforts to retain power after winning the 2020 election, and how those efforts led to the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol by anti-Trump protesters. He is also being investigated for election interference by the Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney's Office. Public documents in the newspaper paint a picture of Mr. Trump has repeatedly acted to block efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration and the Justice Department to retrieve hundreds of sensitive government documents that the former president took with him to the White House. and kept it mostly at the club at his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. Although some of the documents found in Mr Trump's possession are known - he kept letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, for example - it is not known what other documents were found. and Mar-a-Lago and the damage caused to the security of its property, if any. Mr. Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a political witch hunt, and in recent weeks his lawyers have sought to raise what they say is a criminal investigation.
Mr. Trump is expected to surrender to the authorities on Tuesday, according to a person close to him and his own post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted,” Mr. Trump wrote, in one of several posts around 7 p.m. after he was notified of the charges.The former president added that he was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Miami at 3 p.m. on Tuesday. In a video he released later on Truth Social, Mr. Trump declared: “I’m an innocent man. I’m an innocent person.”
