Trump Indicted on Federal Charges in Classified Document Case

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on federal charges related to his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Trump reportedly faces seven criminal counts and will surrender to authorities in Miami on Tuesday.

Summary

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he has been indicted on federal charges related to his handling of classified documents after leaving office. Trump reportedly faces seven criminal counts and will surrender to authorities in Miami on Tuesday.

• The indictment makes Trump the first former president to be charged with federal crimes and a conviction would carry grave legal consequences for the former president, including prison time.
• A member of Trump’s legal team told CNN that the indictment “includes charges of willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice, false statements and conspiracy.”
• The charges are being brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Trump’s handling of classified documents after he returned to civilian life in Jan. 2021. Smith is also probing efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a parallel investigation that is still ongoing.
• Trump said he has been ordered to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday. It’s also possible he could face charges in Washington, DC, as Smith convened grand juries in both jurisdictions to hear from witnesses in this case.
• The former president plans to plead not guilty to the charges, and he told Fox News he’s “totally innocent” and the charges represent “election interference at the highest level.”
• Some GOP primary rivals, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, defended Trump after the indictment, while others like former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie urged patience until more “facts are revealed.”
• Republican lawmakers like Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley argued the indictment “raises serious conflict-of-interest issues” for Garland due to Trump’s distinction as the leading GOP presidential candidate and that investigators have also seized classified documents that Biden kept after the end of the Obama administration.
• This is the second indictment for Trump after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted him on state charges connected to an alleged “hush money” payment scheme with a porn star. That case is set to go to trial in New York in March 2024.

• Politico observed that in the “real – if still remote – prospect” that Trump could be sent to prison, “There are no legal obstacles to running for president as a convicted felon or even from behind bars.” In fact, socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs earned nearly a million votes in the 1920 presidential election from his prison cell after his conviction for speaking out against US involvement in World War I.
• The New York Times’ Peter Baker wrote the indictment brought Trump’s story “full circle” from 2016. “There was a time, not that long ago really, when Donald J. Trump said he cared about the sanctity of classified information. That, of course, was when his opponent was accused of jeopardizing it and it was a useful political weapon for Mr. Trump,” Baker wrote. “Even in the what-goes-around-comes-around department of American politics, it is rather remarkable that the issue that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House in the first place now threatens to ruin his chances of getting back there.”
• CNN reported federal and Miami officials are working together on a transportation plan to deliver Trump to the federal courthouse where he will be formally placed under arrest and processed. “For security reasons, officials would prefer the surrender and processing to occur in one place — at the federal court complex — to limit any possible threat to his safety. Trump would be placed in the custody of the US Marshals and electronically fingerprinted.”

• Elon Musk weighed in, arguing that Trump’s indictment could hurt the public’s faith in the justice system. “There does seem to be far higher interest in pursuing Trump compared to other people in politics, Musk tweeted on Thursday according to Fox News. Musk continued, “Very important that the justice system rebut what appears to be differential enforcement or they will lose public trust.”
• Breitbart published the transcript of the full video message Trump posted to Truth Social on Thursday. “I’m an innocent man. I’m an innocent person,” Trump said. “They had the Mueller hoax, the Mueller report, and that came out no collusion after two and a half years. That was set up by Hillary Clinton and Democrats, but this is what they do. This is what they do so well, if they would devote their energies to honesty and integrity, it would be a lot better for our country. They could do a lot better. They could do a lot of great things.”
• National Review’s Jim Geraghty argued Trump may actually have “surprisingly good odds against the DOJ.” Geraghty writes, “Perhaps the biggest problem for the prosecution is that a wide variety of government officials — Hillary Clinton, Sandy Berger, former CIA director John M. Deutch, former CIA director and retired U.S. Army general David Petraeus, former secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, Joe Biden, Mike Pence — have been caught taking classified documents out of secure locations to their homes or other locations, with no criminal charges.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2023