Donald Trump has been indicted by the Department of Justice following an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith into classified documents he took while exiting the White House, according to a Truth Social post from the former president. This would be the first time a former president has ever faced federal charges.
Trump has been charged with seven counts in the indictment, according to multiple reports.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” Trump posted Thursday evening (punctuation and grammar his).
“I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” Trump continued. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”
The former president has already sent a fundraising email off the back of the DoJ indictment. “We are watching our Republic DIE before our very eyes,” the mailer begins.
The FBI conducted a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022, in order to ascertain whether he was retaining classified or top-secret documents that should have been kept in a SCIF, or sensitive compartmented information facility.
Trump was previously indicted by a grand jury in the state of New York in connection with hush money payments he had purportedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The documents scandal was one of two lines of investigation being pursued by Special Counsel Jack Smith, the other being Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riots. A further investigation into Trump’s election interference is currently taking place in the state of Georgia.
If convicted, Trump could become just the second presidential candidate to run from prison; the first, socialist Eugene Debs, stood in the 1920 election.
