Donald Trump has been indicted in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe — marking the first federal charges ever against a U.S. president, sitting or former — and he says he has been summoned to appear in Miami federal court Tuesday.
NBC News has confirmed the indictment, which was first reported by the former president himself on his social media. This is now Trump’s second pending indictment but possibly not his last, as the special counsel is also investigating Jan. 6 in addition to the classified documents, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating possible election interference in Georgia as well. Trump already was indicted in New York state in his hush money case, which is set for trial in March.
NBC News reported that the new federal indictment contains seven counts, including conspiracy to obstruct. It’s unclear what all of the specific charges are at the moment, but it has seemed that Smith’s team investigated a mix of offenses related to mishandling government documents and obstruction of justice, as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination apparently attempted to fend off officials from retrieving government documents that he kept at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
The latest indictment, while jarring as it comes against a former president and current candidate, has been expected, given a flurry of activity in a Florida grand jury this week. Trump was recently informed that he was a target of the investigation, and his attorneys met with prosecutors earlier this week in an apparent attempt to stave off indictment.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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