Former US President Donald Trump becomes defendant in criminal investigation

The available information came to journalists from a person familiar with this case. The publication notes that the message to Donald Trump is the clearest signal that Special Counsel Jack Smith is close to making a decision. We are talking about the filing of charges in the investigation against the former president.

Read also The FBI had no reason to investigate the connection of the Trump campaign with Russia – report of the special prosecutor

Trump wants to be prosecuted

Recall that Trump is under investigation because of hiding bundles of secret documents. He kept them on his private estate. The former president is also accused of masterminding a scheme that made it impossible for federal authorities to find these documents.

Journalists additionally noted that a spokesman for Smith’s office declined to comment on the letter to Trump.

At the same time, Politico notes that over the past weeks, Smith summoned to the grand jury several people from Trump’s inner circle. It actually deals with the investigation of the case of documents. Among those summoned was one of the former president’s lawyers.

Former Trump Speaker Taylor Budovich admitted she was before a grand jury formed in Florida on Wednesday morning. She was asked about the statement the former president wrote in early 2022. It said that he allegedly gave “everything” after returning 15 boxes with materials from the National Archives.

Let’s get back to the letter to Trump. The instruction of the Ministry of Justice provides that prosecutors can send a “target letter” to those who, likely to be charged in connection with the grand jury investigation. Thus, law enforcement officers give the opportunity to testify before the moment when they pass a guilty verdict.

In this case, the addressee of the prosecutors may be a person in respect of whom there is “strong evidence that connects him with the commission of a crime, and who, in the opinion of the prosecutor, is a likely accused.”

Accusation of illegal possession of documents

Note that prosecutors are investigating a case against Trump for possession of national security material. Law enforcement could draw their conclusions from the evidence that he was still president at the time when the secret documents moved Mar-a-Lago. This means that his “illegal possession” began in Florida.

At the same time, he may not be charged with violation of the Espionage Act in Washington. This will be impossible if prosecutors have evidence that Trump knew he was keeping national security documents in Mar-a-Lago after he left office, for example, “waving them or showing them to people.”