Former President Donald Trump said Thursday night that he has been indicted on charges of mishandling classified documents. He said he was told to appear in federal court on Tuesday in Miami.

The indictment marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges, and it is the second time Trump has been charged criminally this year. And it will likely dominate the run-up to the 2024 presidential election. Trump is running for a second term, and the apparent front-runner for the Republican nomination in a campaign season where his impeachments, lawsuits and possible indictments were already a factor.

In several posts on his social media site, Trump said his attorneys have informed him that they were told of the indictment by attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department.

The New York Times and other media outlets, citing unnamed sources, said Trump faces seven counts in that indictment. Those charges “include conspiracy to obstruct, willful retention of documents and false statements,” the Times reported.

Investigators have been looking into Trump’s handling of boxes of classified documents that were said to be at his Florida estate.

Credit: (AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)
Pages from an Aug. 30, 2022 Department of Justice court filing in response to a request from the legal team of former President Trump for a special master to review the documents seized during a search of Mar-a-Lago. Included in the filing was an FBI photo of documents that were seized during the search.

Earlier Thursday, Trump’s attorneys filed papers fighting a jury’s verdict in a civil suit where it found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Jurors last month said Trump should pay nearly $3 million in damages.

That civil action was just one of several legal issues Trump faces, a range of probes that also includes an investigation by state officials in Georgia that the former president interfered in the counting of that state’s ballots in the 2020 election.

In January, Trump’s family business was ordered to pay the maximum penalty of $1.6 million after a conviction in New York on charges including felony tax fraud.

News of the indictment Thursday comes just after former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie officially announced his 2024 presidential bid. At an event in New Hampshire on Tuesday, Christie indicated his campaign strategy is to attack the former president for both his demeanor and policies. 

“The person I am talking about … who never admits a mistake, who never admits fault and always found someone else and something else to blame for whatever goes wrong but finds every reason to take credit for anything that goes right, is Donald Trump,” Christie said Tuesday.

According to multiple reports, Trump is currently in Bedminster, New Jersey.

TAGS: "HOAX" CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS DONALD TRUMP INDICTMENT SOCIAL MEDIA
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