Republicans have rallied around Donald Trump, as it was confirmed he had been indicted by the Department for Justice on seven charges including illegally retaining classified documents.
Trump and his allies have decried foul play, declaring the Biden administration “corrupt” for weaponising the justice system against a political rival.
Though the charges have not yet been made public, Trump confirmed that he has been summoned to appear before a federal judge in Miami on Tuesday afternoon.
Taking to his social media site Truth Social, a furious Trump responded in an all capped-up message: "I am an innocent man! The Biden Administration is totally corrupt. This is election interference and a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time."
The Republican nomination frontrunner added: "I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former president of the United States.”
In August last year, FBI agents raided Trump’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, seizing 13,000 documents including 103 marked as classified of which 18 were the highest security clearance of top secret.
Jim Trusty, Trump’s attorney, told CNN the charges include conspiracy, false statements, obstruction of justice, and illegally retaining classified documents under the Espionage Act.
Meanwhile, special prosecutor Jack Smith has been examining the evidence since he was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November to oversee the case.
Pledging to Fox News that he would “of course” plead not guilty, legal experts have clarified that criminal charges or even a conviction would not prevent Trump from running for president in 2024.
David Super, a professor at Georgetown University Law Centre, said: "He can be indicted any number of times and it won't stop his ability to stand for office."
Trump could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Reuters
However, it is reported that Trump could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted on all charges.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, turned on President Joe Biden, pointing out that it was “unconscionable for a president to indict the leading candidate opposing him”.
The speaker added: “House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponisation of power accountable.”
Putting aside their rivalry for a moment, Trump’s opponent for the 2024 Republican nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, said: “We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.
"The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponisation once and for all.”
Vivek Ramaswamy, also vying for the Republican candidacy, went a step further in saying he would "commit to pardon Trump promptly on January 20, 2025, and to restore the rule of law in our country".
Donald Trump appearing at a virtual hearing in New York for the Stormy Daniels case
Reuters
Another candidate, Asa Hutchinson, warily said that Trump's alleged actions "should not define our nation or the Republican Party".
It is against US law for federal officials, president included, to remove or keep classified documents at an unauthorised location.
Of the 13,000 documents seized in the FBI raid, 31 were confidential, 54 secret, and 18 top secret.
Trump also wrote on Truth Social: “The corrupt Biden Administration has informed by attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax.
"This is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. We are a country in serious and rapid decline.”
The former president also put out a video filmed from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, in which he said: “Very sadly we’re a nation in decline and yet they go after a popular president… weaponising the justice department, weaponising the FBI.”
In April, Trump became the first former president to be charged with a crime, after pleading not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records over hush money allegedly paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The property and media mogul is due to stand trial in New York next year.
News of the indictment comes days after it emerged that the storage room at Mar-a-Lago where surveillance camera footage was being kept was flooded.
Prosecutors had been interested in seeing the footage to track how White House records entered and moved around the resident but purportedly accidental flooding from the swimming pool being drained on Monday has rendered this unlikely.
Biden has also had his fair share of classified controversy, for between November 2022 and January 2023, 25 to 30 boxes of classified documents were discovered by the president’s attorneys in his former office at the Penn Biden Centre in Washington D.C.
Retaliating by referencing this perceived hypocrisy, Trump said: “Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, DC, 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.”
