Former President Donald Trump says his attorneys have been informed of a federal indictment stemming from an investigation into classified documents allegedly kept at his private residence after the end of his presidency.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate the allegations in November 2022.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social late Thursday.
On Wednesday, Taylor Budowich, a former Trump spokesperson and head of the Trump-boosting super-PAC Make America Great Again, provided testimony to a grand jury in Miami. Afterward, Budowich did not reveal what specific questions he was asked, but he did say that he considered the investigation a “bogus and deeply troubling effort to use the power of the government to ‘get’ Trump,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Prosecutors are investigating whether Trump broke the law by improperly taking classified documents from his time as president and storing them in his home office at the Mar-a-Lago resort. In August of 2022, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago and hauled off boxes of materials. Trump was not present when the raid occurred and his lawyers were not permitted to observe the agents execute the warrant.
Trump has asserted that as president he had the power to declassify any document without having to follow any particular procedure. Supporters of this position point to the 1988 Supreme Court ruling in Navy v. Egan, which held that the president’s “authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security … flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”
However, the special counsel leading the investigation may draw a different conclusion. He has reportedly interviewed numerous employees at Mar-a-Lago and others in Trump’s orbit.
More clarity on the situation is likely to come early next week.
“I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” Trump continued in a separate post Thursday. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!”