The “corrupt Biden administration” informed my attorneys that I was indicted, Trump said.
Washington:
Donald Trump said on Thursday that he had been indicted over his handling of classified documents after leaving office, the most serious legal threat to the former US president as a storm of investigations criminally threatened his bid for a second White House term.
“The corrupt Biden administration has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted, apparently due to the Hoax in the Box,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform as he announced the shocking news. about a historic moment for the United States: the first time a sitting or former commander-in-chief has ever faced federal charges.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Justice Department of Trump’s assertion, although several US media outlets including The New York Times have cited sources as saying that Trump has indeed been indicted.
In his post, Trump, who is running for president again, said he was summoned to federal court on Tuesday in Miami.
“I never thought that would happen to a former President of the United States,” he wrote.
Mr Trump’s announcement came a day after US media reported that federal prosecutors had informed the former president’s attorneys that he was the target of an investigation into his handling of US assets. secret material.
He’s already the first current or former president to be charged — in his case for pre-election payments to a porn star who said she had an affair with him. That indictment, brought by Manhattan’s district attorney in March.
It remained unclear on Thursday exactly what Trump was charged with in the latest case.
Trump, who will turn 77 next week, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, appointed by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, reviewed a cache of classified documents that Trump had kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida after leaving the House. White.
The FBI moved about 11,000 documents after executing a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago in August, and Trump could face obstruction of justice charges after months of fighting efforts to recover the archives. .
Trump ultimately turned over 15 boxes containing nearly 200 classified documents to the National Archives last January but was subpoenaed for any backlog he owned.
Investigators scrutinized a number of suspected attempts to impede them from accessing documents and footage from security cameras near the warehouse at Mar-a-Lago, where the documents were kept.
– Mounting legal woes –
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the document lawsuit, including at a Fox News town hall event on June 1, when he said, “I don’t know anything about that. All All I know is: Everything I did was right.”
But he has publicly admitted to taking and storing the documents, undermining his attorney’s suggestion that he inadvertently stashed documents in the confusion of a tumultuous departure.
The latest indictment comes with Trump facing more investigations as he bids to be the Republican nominee to challenge President Joe Biden for the presidency in 2024.
Smith is also looking into whether Trump will face charges over the 2021 Capitol riot, and Georgia prosecutors are investigating whether Trump illegally tried to overturn the election results. whether the 2020 president is there or not.
The former president has been charged with dozens of financial crimes as part of an alleged scheme to silence a porn star who claimed she had sex with him, and will be released. trial next March, in the middle of the primary season.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
