(Washington) Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he has been indicted by a federal judge for managing the White House archives, a new pitfall for Republicans seeking to regain the US presidency in 2024.
“The corrupt Biden administration has accused my lawyers of a fake boxing case,” he wrote on his Truth social network.
The Republican billionaire said he was summoned to federal court in Miami on Tuesday.
This is the first time in US history that a former president has faced federal charges.
In March, he was already indicted by a New York state judge in the 2016 case of buying the silence of the X film actress.
This time, he was accused of possessing entire boxes of documents classified as “Secret Security” after he left Washington in 2021 and refusing to return them in violation of federal laws.
According to several US media, he will face seven charges, which have not yet been made public.
Donald Trump, who is currently ahead of other candidates for the Republican nomination, has always defended himself against any fraud and portrayed himself as a victim of “political persecution”.
“I never imagined something like this would happen to a former president of the United States,” he lashed out on Thursday, condemning “a dark day” for the country.
“How can the Justice Department accuse me when I have done nothing,” he wrote again on Truth Social on Monday, after his attorneys were received by the department’s officials.
The meeting was seen as the culmination of a dramatic search of his Florida home in August 2022, signaling that an indictment was imminent after months of investigation.
11,000 records
In the United States, a 1978 law requires all US presidents to turn over all of their emails, letters, and other working documents to the National Archives. Another law related to espionage prohibits anyone from keeping classified documents in unauthorized and unsecured locations.
When Donald Trump left the presidency to settle down at his luxurious Mar-a-Lago home, he took full boxes of files with him.
Photo by Giorgio Vieira, Agence France-Presse
Florida home of Donald Trump Mar-a-Lago
In January 2022, after several reminders, he agreed to return 15 boxes containing more than 200 classified documents.
In a letter, his lawyers assured that there were no others.
After the investigation, the federal police, however, determined that he had not returned everything and that he still had a lot at his club in Palm Beach.
FBI agents went there on August 8 and seized about thirty boxes containing 11,000 documents, some of which were very important to Iran or China.
Photo by John Elswick, Associated Press Archives
List of documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago.
Strongly condemning the media operation, his lawyers have criticized the FBI for what they say is a photograph of seized documents labeled “Top Secret” strewn across a floral patterned carpet.
To silence allegations of a frame-up, Attorney General Merrick Garland in November appointed special counsel Jack Smith to independently oversee the investigation, as well as another prosecutor into Donald Trump’s role in the Capitol storm.
setbacks
Another special counsel is investigating parallel classified documents discovered earlier this year in a former office and home of Democratic President Joe Biden by his lawyers.
These embarrassing findings, along with others from former Vice President Mike Pence, have allowed Donald Trump to downplay his behavior, while Joe Biden has always cooperated with justice, voluntarily returning a very small number of documents.
The Republican Tribune used his rival’s inventions to rally his supporters in close ranks around him every time justice struck him.
This was especially true in April, shortly after he was indicted by a New York state judge.
This is the first time in US history that a former president has faced criminal charges. The latter have repeated themselves and Donald Trump’s setbacks will undoubtedly not stop there.
Georgia’s attorney general, who has been investigating Republican pressure for months to try to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, must announce the outcome of his investigation by September.
