Former President Donald Trump Indicted for Keeping Classified Documents and Obstructing Justice

June 9 (Reuters) –

A federal grand jury has indicted former US President Donald Trump for keeping classified documents and obstructing justice, according to a source familiar with the matter.

This criminal charge, brought by the United States Department of Justice, constitutes a new legal setback for Donald Trump, in the midst of the campaign for the Republican nomination in the presidential election of 2024.

Another

criminal trial

brought against Donald Trump for accounting fraud is due to open on March 25, 2024.

Donald Trump said on his social network that he was summoned to appear in federal court in Miami, Florida on Tuesday.

“I AM INNOCENT!” he wrote on Truth Social.

Lawyers for the former president did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The spokesman for the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation declined to comment.

The indictment remains sealed and Donald Trump himself has not yet seen its contents. His attorneys were briefed on all seven counts as part of a court subpoena on Tuesday in Miami, the source said.

The US Department of Justice is investigating classified documents taken to Florida by Donald Trump or his associates after the Republican left the White House in 2021.

Some 13,000 documents were seized last year by investigators from Donald Trump’s Florida home in Mar-a-Lago. Around 100 of these documents were classified as confidential.

Donald Trump has said in the past that he declassified the documents taken away before the end of his mandate, without providing evidence – an argument that his lawyers have been careful not to mention in court documents.

Donald Trump is the first former president in US history to face criminal charges. (Report Costas Pitas and Sarah N. Lynch; French version Camille Raynaud)