WATCH: Jack Smith Statement on Charges Against Donald Trump: Laws in this Country ‘Apply to Everyone’
Former President Donald Trump has been charged by a grand jury with 37 felony counts in a federal investigation into
Ivy Griffith
Former President Donald Trump has been charged by a grand jury with 37 felony counts in a federal investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified documents since leaving the White House.
Today, the indictment was unsealed, and revealed a breathtaking list of charges that include 31 pertaining to violations of the Espionage Act.
To read the full indictment, click here.
In the indictment, special counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation, lays out a case showing that Trump allegedly knew that not only did he possess the documents he told FBI agents he no longer had, but he knew that they were classified and improperly stored.
Smith has been methodical in setting up the case.
By unsealing the indictment now, days ahead of Trump’s Tuesday, June 13, arraignment in court, he is avoiding the political theater and grandstanding that would have played out while media outlets and political pundits speculated during the intervening time.
By having the grand jury in Florida vote on the indictment, he was also creating a court scenario that is more favorable to Trump and his legal team than, perhaps, a grand jury in Washington D.C. would have been.
This averts Trump’s team’s inevitable attempt to cry bias. They likely would have requested the case be tried in Florida anyway, and Smith skipped the middleman to set it up that way from the start.
The indictment paper shows numerous occasions where Trump’s own words admit to the crimes he’s accused of, despite the former POTUS’s attempt to spin the entire investigation as a “witch hunt.”
Trump is also facing uncertainty on a more personal level after two of his lawyers resigned on Friday, hours ahead of the unsealing of the indictment.
And to avoid letting the circus fever pitch build any higher than necessary, Smith took the extraordinary and vital step of getting up before the American people and making a brief statement about the indictment.
In the statement, he implores people to read the full indictment, and to understand the “scope” and “gravity” of the crimes described therein. The full video of Smith’s statement has been provided above.
Over on Truth Social, Trump is scrambling to draw attention away from his rapidly growing peril, writing, “Biden moved his Boxes all over the place, including to Chinatown and up to his lawyer’s office in Boston. Why isn’t deranged Jack Smith looking at that? Also, I supplied them openly, and without question, security tape from Mar-a-Lago. I had nothing to hide, nor do I now. Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that….”
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And adding, “….Biden had records for years, totally unsecured, even stolen when he was a Senator. This is crazy! Just like Jack Smith, Lisa Monaco, and the man they sent to the D.A.’s Office, Matt Colangelo. It isn’t America anymore. Under the Presidential Records Act, I’m allowed to do all this. Under the Clinton Socks Case, the decision is clear. There was no crime, except for what the DOJ and FBI have been doing against me for years.”
Additionally, he has gone on the offense against Smith, calling him, a “psycho,” “deranged lunatic,” and “Trump-hater.”
Trump will be arraigned in a Florida court house on Tuesday, June 13 – one day before his 77th birthday.