Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges related to his handling of classified documents, multiple news outlets reported on Thursday.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media platform, that the Justice Department informed his attorneys that he had been indicated and that he has been summoned to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami. Other media outlets quickly confirmed the indictments. There were initial reports that he will face seven counts.
The charges stem from his withholding of the government documents after he left office in 2021 and then obstructing federal efforts to retrieve them. That led to an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago last year.
Cable and broadcast outlets broke into regular programming to report on the indictment, the first federal criminal charges facing a former president.
Pierre Thomas, chief justice correspondent for ABC News, told David Muir, “This is perhaps one of the most consequential investigations the Justice Department has done in recent memory. We are talking about investigating a former president who is seeking to be re-elected.”
Trump was indicted in April on New York state charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels in advance of the 2016 presidential election. Trump plead not guilty to the allegations.
The federal charges, however, are viewed as potentially more serious for the ex-president, even if he has so far maintained a solid lead in GOP polls despite the legal troubles. He has maintained that the charges are politically motivated and has attacked the special prosecutor, Jack Smith, who brought the case. In his Truth Social message, he called the case the “Boxes Hoax,” apparently referring to the documents with classified markings found at Mar-a-Lago.
