Donald Trump says he has been accused of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate, launching a federal prosecution that is arguably the most dangerous of the multiple legal threats against the former president as he seeks to reclaim the White House.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment or confirmation.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Previous AP story follows below.
MIAMI (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and his aides are preparing for possible indictment in the classified documents probe, as prosecutors handling the investigation were spotted Thursday in a Miami Courthouse where a grand jury has been hearing testimony.
Lawyers for the former president have been told he is a target of the investigation, the clearest indication yet that criminal charges could be coming soon, according to two people familiar with the matter. In an effort to get ahead of a possible indictment, aides in the past two days have been contacting Trump’s allies in Congress to be ready to go on television and offer defenses of the former president, according to another person familiar with the matter.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters related to the secret grand jury process.
Meanwhile, a Miami grand jury heard at least one additional witness this week, a former top Trump aide, as signs continued to mount that prosecutors were preparing a possible indictment related to the handling of hundreds of classified documents at Trump’s home in Florida Mar-a-Lago.
Monday, his lawyers met with Justice Department officials in Washington to argue against an indictment, walking out of the building stone-faced less than two hours later without comment. Meanwhile, Trump has posted on social media this week suggesting he plans to be impeached and has stepped up attacks on special counsel Jack Smith and his team. And a key prosecutor for the team, David Harbach, was spotted outside court Thursday by an Associated Press reporter.
The notification to Trump’s lawyers that he is a target is particularly ominous given that such warning often, though not always, precedes criminal charges. The Justice Department defines a target as someone about whom prosecutors have substantial evidence related to a crime.
“The signal is increasingly that the charges against the former president will be in Florida,” said Brandon Van Grack, a former Justice Department prosecutor and a key attorney on a previous special counsel team that investigated the ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
Trump’s lawyers did not return calls seeking comment. A Trump spokesman would neither confirm nor deny receiving a letter, and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
On Wednesday, Taylor Budowich, who had been Trump’s spokesman after his presidency and now runs a pro-Trump super PAC, testified before the grand jury. He confirmed his appearance on Twitter, writing: “Today, in what can only be described as a disingenuous and deeply troubling effort to use government power to ‘get’ Trump, I complied with the legal obligation to testify before a federal grand jury. and I answered every question honestly.”
Several witnesses, including Trump lawyers, close associates of the former president and Trump Organization officials, have appeared before the grand jury in Washington over the past year as part of a Justice Department special counsel investigation into Trump for the retention of hundreds of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and the possible obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the records.
But the existence of a separate grand jury in Florida adds a wrinkle to an investigation that has been largely shrouded in mystery and thought to be in its final stages. It suggests prosecutors may be moving toward filing criminal charges in Florida, where the documents were taken after Trump left the White House and where multiple acts of alleged obstruction have occurred, rather than Washington.
While most of the investigative work has been done in Washington, prosecutors could simply read key testimony to a Florida grand jury or have a summary testimony summarize all the key evidence, Van Grack said.
Trump’s lawyers met at the Justice Department on Monday with officials, including Smith, part of an effort by the legal team to raise concerns about what they say is prosecutorial misconduct and to try to argue against a possible indictment. After that meeting, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform in all caps, “How can the DOJ charge me, who did nothing wrong,” when no other president has been indicted.
He also called a radio show, where he confirmed the meeting with his lawyers and said: “Well, I can only say this: they came in and saw them and said very unfair. No other president has ever been accused of ‘something similar'”.
On Wednesday, she released a new post on social media saying, “Nobody has told me I’m being charged, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong, but I’ve assumed for years that I’m a target of the DOJ and “Armed FBI”.
In a radio interview Thursday with WABC, Trump repeated his well-known stances against the investigation, calling it a “disgrace” and casting the documents’ case as part of a broader politically motivated campaign against him.
Meanwhile, Trump’s super PAC has been distributing talking points denouncing Smith and painting him as intent on targeting Trump, though a person familiar with the Trump campaign’s thinking denied any action by specific outreach and said the campaign was in touch with Capitol allies as always.
Smith, a veteran public corruption and war crimes prosecutor, was tapped in November to serve as special counsel. As the former head of the Justice Department’s public integrity section, he oversaw investigations into several prominent Democrats, a record that likely insulates him from attacks by Trump allies that he is a partisan prosecutor.
The investigation has focused not only on the possession of classified documents, even at the top secret level, but also on Trump’s refusal to return the records when requested, and on possible obstruction.
The FBI last year issued a subpoena for classified records at the property and, after suspecting that Trump and his representatives had not returned all the documents, returned with a search order and recovered an additional 100 with qualifying marks.
Beyond the Mar-a-Lago investigation, another investigation in Washington also conducted by Smith focuses on efforts by Trump and his allies to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election.
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Colvin in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report. Associated Press reporters Adriana Gomez Licon and Daniel Kozin in Miami and Michelle L. Price also contributed.
