Former United States President, Donald Trump, has declared that he has been indicted over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, June 8.
This is the first time a sitting or former U.S. President has ever faced federal charges.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Justice Department regarding Trump’s assertion.
A Trump attorney, Jim Trusty, disclosed that his client has been indicted on seven charges including the willful retention of documents in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements, obstruction of justice, and a count of conspiracy.
Though the precise details of the charges were not immediately clear, people familiar with the matter told The New York Times the conspiracy charge was related to obstruction of justice.
READ ALSO: Trump mocks sexual abuse victim, refuses to accept 2020 defeat
In his post, Trump, who is running for president again, said he has been summoned to a federal courthouse in Miami next Tuesday – the day before his 77th birthday.
“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States,” he wrote.
His announcement came a day after U.S. media said federal prosecutors had informed the former president’s lawyers that he is the target of the probe into his handling of classified documents.
He was already the first former or sitting president to be charged with a crime – in his case over election-eve hush money payments to a porn star who said she had an affair with him.
That indictment was handed down by Manhattan’s district attorney in March.
In a statement after his initial online posts, the Trump campaign lashed out at what it called an “unprecedented abuse of power,” and called for the indictment to be thrown out.
In a defiant video released after he shared the news, Trump repeatedly declared his innocence and framed the indictment as a form of election interference by a Justice Department “weaponized” by Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump said: “They come after me because now we’re leading in the polls again by a lot against Biden.
“Our country is going to hell and they come after Donald Trump… We can’t let this continue.”
Special counsel Jack Smith, named by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, has been looking into a cache of classified documents that Trump had stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after leaving the White House.
The FBI carted away some 11,000 papers after serving a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago in August, and obstruction-of-justice charges could be a result of his resisting efforts to recover the trove.
Trump eventually turned over 15 boxes containing almost 200 classified documents to the National Archives in January 2022 but was subpoenaed for any outstanding records in his possession.
When asked about the charges Thursday night, Smith’s spokesman Peter Carr told AFP, “We are declining to comment.”
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the documents case, telling a Fox News town hall event on June 1 that “everything I did was right.”
But he has openly acknowledged taking and storing the documents, undermining his lawyers’ suggestion he took the stash inadvertently in the confusion of a chaotic departure.
The latest indictment comes with Trump facing numerous other probes as he bids to be the Republican nominee to challenge President Joe Biden for the presidency in 2024.
Smith is also looking at whether Trump should face charges over the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot, and Georgia prosecutors are investigating whether Trump illegally attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcome there.
The former president has already been charged with dozens of financial crimes as part of an alleged hush money scheme to silence a porn star claiming she had sex with him, and is due to go on trial next March, in the middle of primary election season.
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