WASHINGTON — A federal grand jury indicted Donald Trump on seven criminal counts related to his mishandling of more than 100 classified documents discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, making the former twice indicted commander-in-chief -chief the first former president to face federal criminal charges.
Trump said late Thursday that his lawyers have been informed that he has been charged in the special counsel’s investigation into his handling of classified documents. Two sources familiar with the matter confirmed the allegation.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said: “My lawyers have been informed by the corrupt Biden administration that I have been indicted, apparently for the Pitos hoax.”
NBC News has confirmed Trump’s accusation. He has received a summons to appear in US District Court on June 13.
Trump’s lawyer, John Rowley, said he has been indicted on seven counts. The specific charges against Trump are still unknown.
A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment.
A familiar source says the indictment is sealed, so the government cannot comment.
Minutes after Trump announced that he had been indicted on the Truth Social, he sent out a fundraising appeal citing the criminal charges.
“The Biden-appointed special counsel has INDICTED me in yet another witch hunt regarding documents I had the RIGHT to declassify as President of the United States,” the fundraising email read, asking supporters to “make a contribution to be at peace” with him. .
The grand jury’s decision is the culmination of a months-long Justice Department investigation now led by special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Smith, who was appointed in November 2022 after Trump announced his run for the Republican nomination in 2024, took over existing investigations into Trump’s handling of classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago home, as well as «key aspects» of the Justice Department’s investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump faces several other investigations. In early April, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg separately indicted him on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in hush money payments toward the end of his 2016 presidential campaign. pleaded not guilty in that case. Trump is also facing a criminal investigation in Georgia related to the 2020 election.
After Trump left office in January 2021, the federal government made multiple attempts to obtain files Trump had kept from his time in the White House, giving the former president and his legal team multiple opportunities to hand them over.
The government eventually seized more than 11,000 pages of government documents from Mar-a-Lago, including more than 100 classified documents, after the former president’s team certified that they had conducted an exhaustive search of the site for classified documents.
Trump has denied doing anything wrong and has dismissed allegations that he mishandled classified documents by saying he had already declassified them.
Smith, who was appointed in November 2022 after Trump announced his run for the Republican nomination in 2024, took over existing investigations into Trump’s handling of classified documents found at the Mar-a-Lago home, as well as «key aspects» of the Justice Department’s investigation into the January 6 attack on the Capitol and efforts to obstruct the peaceful transfer of power.
He has also likened his situation to that of President Joe Biden, who was also found to be in possession of classified Obama administration documents. But the circumstances are very different.
The catalyst for the investigation of the documents came in early 2022 when Trump returned 15 boxes of documents from the Mar-a-Lago White House to the National Archives and Records Administration. The Presidential Records Act requires that all presidential records be properly preserved by each administration and transferred to the National Archives ultimately, and the Archives had repeatedly asked Trump’s team to turn over documents it believed were missing, according to court documents from the government.
After receiving the boxes in January last year, Archives discovered they included classified material that was mixed up at random and asked the Justice Department to review whether Trump’s handling of the records violated federal law.
Their review found 184 unique documents that had classification marks in the boxes, including 25 documents marked «TOP SECRET,» 67 documents marked «confidential,» and 92 documents marked «secret.»
The files asked Trump’s team to ensure there were no more documents, and a federal grand jury in May 2022 issued a subpoena to Trump demanding the return of all classified-marked documents in his possession.
Trump’s lawyers turned over some additional documents bearing classified marks to the feds in early June of last year, along with a certification from the lawyers that after a «diligent search» all confidential records that had been in Trump’s possession have now been returned. Trump.
But the FBI indicated in an affidavit, according to a heavily redacted version that was released later, that it had learned of evidence suggesting that Trump failed to comply with the subpoena and turned everything over to the federal government.
That affidavit was later used to justify the search of Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 by FBI agents who recovered additional top-secret trove and other highly classified documents, according to court documents unsealed by a federal judge. During that search, which Trump called a «raid,» federal agents removed 11 sets of classified documents, including some that were labeled secret and top secret. Among the items the FBI took were a handwritten note, information about the «president of France,» an executive grant of clemency for Trump ally Roger Stone, and folders of photos. There were also documents described as «SCI» documents, which stands for highly classified «confidential compartmentalized information.»
rebecca shabad, Ken Dilanian, Garrett Haake and Ryan J. Reilly contributed.