This is the first time that a former US president has been tried for federal crimes
Former US President Donald Trump been charged to the Federal Investigation of classified documents found at his Mar-a-lago, Florida mansion. He made the announcement on his Truth Social network, saying he was being summoned Tuesday afternoon to federal court in Miami, where he will be formally served his indictment.
It is the first time in US history that a former president has been charged with a federal crime. Trump was also accused in April of making an illegal payment to pornographic actress Stormy Daniel: But in this case, it wasn’t a federal offense, but a lawsuit filed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The indictments do not preclude Trump from continuing his campaign for the Republican primary in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, nor from potentially being elected president.
The Department of Justice, which initiated the proceedings, has not yet made any public announcements: the indictment has so far been confirmed only by Trump on the Truth Social website, but the US media is full of assurances from anonymous officials familiar with the facts. At the moment, the charges against Trump have not been disclosed in detail, but it is known that the investigation relates to alleged crimes related to concealment of classified documents, obstruction of justice by destroying, altering or falsifying documents, and violating espionage. A federal law code that prohibits and punishes any crime of espionage.
The investigation began after a request was made in February to the Department of Justice by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), a US government agency tasked with preserving the nation’s most important government and historical documents.
The agency said that at the end of his presidential term, Trump took several government documents from the White House – including some documents referred to as “classified”, that is, secret and covered in secrecy, which cannot be disclosed at all – in violation of the presidential order. Records Act, a law that requires US presidents to turn over all documents produced by their department to the National Archives.
In August, the FBI (the investigative agency of the federal police) searched Mar-a-Lago and found more than two dozen boxes containing more than 13,000 documents, including a hundred classified as classified and shrouded in secrecy, that should have been kept only in Government offices. The Justice Department said the search took place after collecting “numerous evidence” of attempts by Trump’s lawyer to hide secret documents kept in the villa and avoid handing them over to authorities.
The FBI had taken several documents from the villa classified as “top secret” or as “sensitive fragmented information,” one of the categories denoting highly sensitive and classified information. Among other things, there were also documents relating to the military defenses and nuclear weapons of a foreign country.
– Also read: What are these “secret” documents?
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