“Donald Trump” For keeping a number of secret documents at his Florida resort and refusing to give them back to the FBI and the National Archives, former President Donald Trump has been charged federally.
According to a source with knowledge of the charges, he is accused of seven counts, including the willful retention of information crucial to the nation’s defense, making at least one false statement, and obstructing justice. Charges from a federal grand jury in Miami have not been made public in charging documents.
“I never imagined that a former American president, who received more votes than any other president in our nation’s history and who is currently far ahead of all other candidates in polls for the 2024 presidential election, both Democrats and Republicans, could experience such a thing. I AM A MAN WITHOUT CRIME!” In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump stated.
In a statement, Trump said that he has been asked to appear in Miami federal court on Tuesday.
Trump’s attorneys met with Justice Department representatives in Washington, D.C., earlier this week to try to avoid charges as the investigation has become more intense in recent days.
Special counsel for the DOJ Jack Smith’s office stated that they had no further comment at this time. Smith, a seasoned public corruption and war crimes prosecutor, is also in charge of the investigation into significant elements of the attempt to invalidate presidential election results on January 6, 2021.
The legal risk in Florida comes after a grand jury in Manhattan, working closely with District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was indicted earlier this year on 34 counts of falsifying business records. In the bookkeeping case involving hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the final months of the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has entered a not-guilty plea.
Although he has acknowledged paying Cohen back for money given to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, Trump has denied having an affair with her.
A third investigation into Trump’s alleged attempts to exert pressure on Georgia’s state election officials is being led by a prosecutor in Fulton County.
Despite the criminal indictments, the former president has vowed to carry on with his campaign to retake the White House in 2024. After the charges against him were made public in New York this year, Trump received millions of dollars in contributions. He is still in the lead among the few Republicans running for the nomination.
When FBI agents carried out a search warrant at the Florida resort while Trump was away, the dispute over records there erupted into the open in August 2022. The search, which sparked a legal battle that lasted weeks in Florida and Washington, D.C., was mentioned in a tweet by the former president.
Attorney General Merrick Garland later told reporters he personally approved the search. And a federal magistrate judge signed off on the search warrant after reading a sworn statement from the FBI. “Probable cause exists to believe that evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed” were being improperly stored in various places at Mar-a-Lago, the affidavit stated.
Authorities found highly sensitive documents, some of which were so sensitive that the government employees involved in the search lacked the clearance to examine them. That finding came after a letter from Trump’s attorney stating that they had searched the site “diligently” for more government secrets but had not come across any.
A judge in D.C. this year discovered grounds to suspect that Trump may have used his attorney to break the law in relation to the Mar-a-Lago papers, in yet another bizarre turn of events. Judge Beryl Howell rejected Trump’s claims of the attorney-client privilege as a result, allowing the Justice Department to continue. That lawyer, Evan Corcoran, has been seen in recent weeks at the federal courthouse, apparently appearing before a grand jury in a closed-door setting. When the case goes to trial, Trump’s own public comments could be used against him as proof of his mental state.
“This is the Presidential Records Act, so keep that in mind. Sean Hannity of Fox News was interviewed by Trump in March 2023. Trump said: “I have the right to take stuff. I’m entitled to look at things. However, both of us and they have the right to speak.”
All the information collected from the NPR.org
