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Former President Donald Trump was indicted by the Justice Department for illegally storing classified documents at his Mar-A-Lago residency in Florida after his term ended in 2021, per The New York Times. The indictment was filed on Thursday, June 6 by the Justice Department in Miami’s Federal District Court. This is the first time in U.S. history that a president has faced federal charges. Although the charges have not yet been disclosed, a source told the NYT that there are several counts.
The indictment comes shortly after Trump’s attorneys met with the Justice Department to ask that the former president not be charged in the investigation, per The Washington Post. Trump took to his Truth Social platform to share an all-caps message to assert his innocence and said that other politicians had also taken classified documents. “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED,” he wrote. “ONLY TRUMP – THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
The investigation into Trump and the classified documents has been going on for over a year! Mar-A-Lago was raided by FBI agents, searching to see if the former president had classified documents, in June 2022. The Justice Department had issued a subpoena into the docs in May 2022, but when Trump did not cooperate, agents raided his home to find any classified materials. Agents found boxes of classified documents, which the former president should not have had, although Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and claimed that he had declassified them before bringing them to his home.
Trump’s indictment for the documents comes weeks after he was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, including the alleged hush money payment to adult star Stormy Daniels. Trump pleaded “not guilty” after he was arrested in New York in April. He was also found liable in the civil suit against E. Jean Carroll who won a lawsuit, finding that the former president had sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and that he’d defamed her by denying the claims. He was not found liable of rape. She was awarded $5 million in the lawsuit.
Aside from the New York legal battles, Trump is also currently undergoing a grand jury investigation in Georgia for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Atlanta District Attorney Fani Willis is expected to announce whether Trump will be indicted or not between mid-July and September 1, per The Associated Press.
The classified documents indictment isn’t the only Justice Department investigation that Trump was under. The Justice Department is also investigating the former president’s involvement in the January 6 attack on the Capitol, after his supporters invaded the building to try to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A House Select Committee investigating January 6 had recommended four criminal charges.
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