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      Fears that Republicans’ rhetoric after Trump indictment could spark violence

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      Belligerent and conspiracy-laden rhetoric from high-profile Republican backers of Donald Trump has heightened fears that the former US president’s campaign against his legal troubles could trigger political violence.Fewer than 24 hours after Donald Trump was indicted, Arizona congressman Andy Biggs went on Twitter and used violent language to call for retribution. “We have now reached a war phase,” he said. “An eye for an eye.”Clay Higgins, another Republican congressman from Louisiana, gave militaristic instructions to his followers. “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this,” he tweeted, using an abbreviation to refer to Trump as the real president.Higgins added: “Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all,” he added, using an apparent reference to military-scale maps. (Two days later Higgins tweeted: “Let Trump handle Trump, he’s got this. We use the Constitution as our only weapon. Peace. Hold.”)The statements from the two far-right congressmen – both of whom voted to overturn the 2020 election – underscore the alarming way that violent rhetoric has seeped into mainstream US political discourse in the Republican party especially in the wake of Trump’s indictment.An estimated 12 million adults – 4.4% of the US population – believe violence is justified to return Trump to power, according to a recent survey by the University of Chicago’s Project on Security & Threats (CPOST).“I’ve been reporting on rightwing movements for 20 years. The ‘heat’ is hotter, the blast stronger. And the source more pungent,” said Jeffrey Sharlet, a professor at Dartmouth College and author of The Undertow, a book studying the far right. “The ‘rhetoric’ is specific: while Twitter giggled at what it took to be the ‘word salad’ of Higgins’ statement, those who study militias read it as the call to arms it is.”It is language that has been encouraged by Trump himself since before he was elected but that perhaps peaked around the January 6 attack on the US Capitol as his supporters invaded the building to try and prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.As a candidate in 2016, Trump pledged to cover the legal fees of supporters who assaulted protesters at his rallies. “I’d like to punch him in the face,” he said of one protester at a 2016 rally.On 6 January 2021, Trump used violent language as he encouraged his supporters to descend on the US Capitol to block the certification of the electoral college vote. “We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said. What followed was the deadliest assault on the US capitol in American history with five people dying in connection with the attack.There was evidence that Trump’s violent language was inspiring his supporters. On The Donald, a pro-Trump forum, users called for violence in order to restore Trump to the presidency, Rolling Stone reported. “The only way this country ever becomes anything like the Constitution says this country should be is if thousands of traitorous rats are publicly executed,” one user wrote, according to the magazine.A 2020 survey by ABC News found at least 54 criminal cases in which Trump was invoked in connection with violent acts or threats of violence.“What’s happening in the United States is political violence is going from the fringe to the mainstream,” Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago who leads CPOST, told the Guardian earlier this month.Trump allies outside of Washington have also relied on violent language to defend the former president since his most recent indictment for his handling of classified documents after he left the White House.“If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me,” Kari Lake, the failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate, said in a speech on Friday to applause. “And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That’s not a threat, that’s a public service announcement.”Pete Santilli, a far-right talk show host, called on the military to use zip-ties to detain Biden, put him in the back of a pickup truck and get him out of the White House, according to the New York Times.Another guest on the show said he would “probably shoot” Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, if it were legal, the Times reported. Santilli also previously called for the execution of former president Barack Obama and other officials if Trump was indicted.Sharlet, the Dartmouth professor, said the violent rhetoric got worse each day that it persisted.“Every day it corrodes the hope of democracy. Every day it encourages so-called ‘lone wolves’ – the real militia to whom such not-so-coded signals are broadcast – to take action,” he said. More

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      William Barr says Trump may be ‘toast’ after ‘very damning’ indictment

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      Donald Trump’s former attorney general William Barr believes that the former president may be “toast” as he faces a sweeping indictment of 37 federal criminal charges over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.Speaking to Fox News on Sunday following the release of the indictment, Barr, who served as the US attorney general under Trump from 2019 to 2020, said that he was “shocked by the degree of sensitivity at these documents and how many there were”.“I do think we have to wait and see what the defense says and what proves to be true. But I do think … if even half of it is true, then he’s toast … It’s a very detailed indictment and it’s very damning,” said Barr.Barr has largely broken with Trump since he left office. His comments stand in stark contrast to Trump’s tirade against federal prosecutors who he said are pursuing him as part of a “witch-hunt”.Barr added: “The government’s agenda was to … protect those documents and get them out and I think it was perfectly appropriate to do that. It was the right thing to do.”Barr went on to push back against Trump’s narrative that he is the victim of a broader government “hoax”, saying: “Presenting Trump as a victim here, the victim of a witch-hunt, is ridiculous.”“He’s been a victim in the past. His adversaries have obsessively pursued him with phony claims and I’ve been at his side defending against him when he is a victim, but this is much different. He’s not a victim here,” said Barr.According to the indictment unsealed on Friday, Trump stored classified documents in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.It also added that Trump directed Walt Nauta, his valet and aide, to deliberately move boxes of records to “conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury”.Documents possessed by Trump “included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack”, said the indictment.Barr said: “. Those documents are among the most sensitive secrets that the country has. They have to be in the custody of the archivist. He had no right to maintain them and retain them. And he kept them in a way at Mar-a-Lago that anyone who really cares about national security, their stomach would churn at it,” he added.In addition to being charged with mishandling classified documents, Trump has been charged with several counts of obstruction of justice as well as making false statements to investigators.Trump has repeatedly maintained his innocence. In two fiery addresses on Saturday – his first public speeches since the federal indictment against him, the GOP’s top presidential contender told crowds of supporters in Georgia and North Carolina that he “will never be detained”.He also lashed out against federal officials, saying: “Now the Marxist left is once again using the same corrupt DoJ [justice department] and the same corrupt FBI, and the attorney general and the local district attorneys to interfere … They’re cheating. They’re crooked. They’re corrupt. These criminals cannot be rewarded. They must be defeated. You have to defeat them.” More

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      ‘I’ll never leave’: Trump vows to stay in 2024 presidential race even if convicted

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      Donald Trump has pledged to continue his 2024 presidential campaign even if he is convicted of a felony, saying he would campaign from prison if necessary.“I’ll never leave,” the former US president told Politico in an interview carried out on his plane between two campaign events. He also dismissed the possibility of pardoning himself, telling the outlet: “I didn’t do anything wrong.”US law does not bar Trump from running while under indictment, nor would it block him if he was convicted.“These are thugs and degenerates who are after me,” he said, continuing his use of inflammatory language to describe his opponents and extensive legal troubles.The defiant comments from Trump came two days after the US Department of Justice charged him with 37 criminal counts related to his mishandling of classified documents and obstructing the department’s investigation into the matter.Trump, who is the leading contender in the Republican field aiming to snag the party nomination to fight Joe Biden for the White House, is the first former US president to face federal charges – an extraordinary moment in American history.Trump has already started seizing on the charges to try an appeal to Republicans for support, holding them up as yet another example of the way that political rivals are trying to persecute him.“The ridiculous and baseless indictment by the Biden administration’s weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country,” he said during a speech at the Georgia Republican party’s convention.He received an enthusiastic welcome at the event from supporters, the Associated Press reported.About 48% of Americans believe Trump should have been indicted over his handling of classified documents, according to a new ABC/Ipsos study, while 35% believe he should not have been. There is a significant partisan split in responses reflecting the US’s deep divides: 86% of self-identified Democrats say he should have been indicted, while 67% of self-identified Republicans say he should not have.Trump leads a wide Republican presidential field fairly easily and most of his rivals have not used the indictment to attack him, a signal of the sway the former president still has over the Republican party.“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, tweeted on Thursday.A day later, in a speech in North Carolina, DeSantis, who is seen as Trump’s most serious rival, seemed a bit more willing to needle Trump, saying he would have been “court-martialed in a New York minute” if he had mishandled classified documents when he was a navy lawyer.DeSantis, who sits a distant second in the polls to Trump, was also endorsed by Oklahoma’s governor, Kevin Stitt, this week – his first gubernatorial endorsement in the race.Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president and another 2024 rival, said Attorney General Merrick Garland should have to publicly explain the charges.“Stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the American people and explain why this indictment went forward,” he said in a North Carolina speech on Saturday. Garland appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to oversee the case in November to ensure independence due to the political sensitivity of the matter.“I had hoped the Department of Justice would see its way clear to resolve these issues with the former president without moving forward with charges, and I’m deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward,” Pence said on Friday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther 2024 candidates echoed those sentiments.Trump’s former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, also suggested the prosecution was political. “The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards, and vendetta politics,” she tweeted. “It’s time to move beyond the endless drama and distractions.”Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, said the “scales are weighted” in the US justice system and pledged to “purge all of the injustices and impurities in our system”.But Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who is running for president and has willingly criticized Trump, called the indictment “devastating” and “evidence filled” on CNN on Friday.“The bigger issue for our country is: is this the type of conduct that we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?” he said.Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, also a sometimes vocal Trump critic running for president, called on Trump to drop out.“What we see in the facts thus far is that he treated [the documents] like entertainment tools,” he said. “Staying in the race does a disservice to the office of presidency and to the country and to the important decision that we have to make.”Trump is expected to appear on Tuesday at 3pm at the federal courthouse in Miami for an arraignment. The Secret Service is reportedly determining a plan for transporting Trump to the courthouse for the appearance, which is likely to be a spectacle. The case will at least initially be overseen by Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who was rebuked by an appeals court for rulings favorable to the ex-president at an earlier point in the case.Trump already faces separate criminal charges in Manhattan over hush-money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. More criminal charges could come this year from both the justice department and prosecutors in Atlanta related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Even Trump, who survived two impeachments while president and has avoided accountability nearly his entire career, seemed to acknowledge his mounting legal woes.“Nobody wants to be indicted,” he told Politico. “I don’t care that my poll numbers went up by a lot. I don’t want to be indicted. I’ve never been indicted. I went through my whole life, now I get indicted every two months. It’s been political.” More

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      Donald Trump kept boxes with US nuclear program documents and foreign weapons details, indictment says – live

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      From 4h agoThe indictment reads that Trump stored in his boxes “information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack”.It goes on:
      The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.
      A lawyer for the Republican congressman and serial fabulist, George Santos, has said that the co-signers on a $500,000 bail package connected to Santos’ federal indictment are members of his family.In a letter to a New York judge, attorney Joseph Murray appealed an order this week to reveal the identities of three people who guaranteed Santos’ $500,000 bond on fraud charges.Murray wrote:
      Defendant has essentially publicly revealed that the suretors are family members and not lobbyists, donors or others seeking to exert influence over the defendant.
      At his arraignment in Long Island last month, Santos, 34, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements.The New York Times sought the identification of Santos’s bail guarantors, arguing they should be identified as they had a chance to exert political influence over a congressman. Other news outlets joined the Times in its effort.In news not related to Donald Trump but involving one of his supporters, Markus Maly of Virginia received a six-year prison sentence for his role in the January 6 attack on Congress, federal prosecutors announced Friday.A grand jury had previously found Maly, 49, guilty of interfering with police during a civil disorder, resisting or impeding officers using a dangerous weapon as well as entering and remaining in a restricted building while armed, among other charges, prosecutors said.Authorities established that Maly joined a mob of Trump supporters who rioted at the Capitol on the day Congress convened to certify the former president’s defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.He was convicted of spraying a chemical irritant at a line of police officers who were defending the Capitol’s lower west terrace. In addition to serving time in prison, Maly must also spend three years under supervision after his release, prosecutors said.His co-defendants Jeffrey Scott Brown and Peter Schwartz were also found guilty of roles in the case. Schwartz later received a 14-year prison sentence. And Brown was given a prison sentence of four years.Maly raised more than $16,000 in funds for his defense from an online campaign that described him as a January 6 prisoner of war, the Associated Press had reported earlier. Prosecutors sought to take that money back in the form of a fine, arguing that Maly had a public defender and did not owe any legal fees.But neither court records nor prosecutors’ announcement about Maly’s sentence mentioned a fine for him as part of his sentence.Maly is among more than 1,000 people to be charged in connection with the January 6 attack, according to prosecutors. Numerous defendants have been convicted and sentenced to prison.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, the two top Democrats in the Congress, have released a joint statement calling for the indictment to “play out through the legal process, without any outside political or ideological interference”.The statement reads:
      No one is above the law – including Donald Trump.
      It goes on to say:
      We encourage Mr Trump’s supporters and critics alike to let this case proceed peacefully in court.
      The US secret service is preparing for Donald Trump’s appearance at a federal court in Miami on Tuesday, but the agency “will not seek any special accommodations outside of what would be required to ensure the former Presidents continued safety”, according to spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi.A statement by Guglielmi reads:
      As with any site visited by a protectee, the Secret Service is in constant coordination with the necessary entities to ensure protective requirements are met,
      He added:
      We have the utmost confidence in the professionalism and commitment to security shared by our law enforcement partners in Florida.
      Trump is expected to surrender himself to authorities in Miami on Tuesday at 3pm ET.Donald Trump took classified documents including information on nuclear weapons in the US and secret plans to attack a foreign country, according to a 49-page federal indictment unsealed Friday afternoon.The former US president, alongside a military valet, now faces a sweeping 37-count felony indictment related to the mishandling of classified documents.Here are five of the most shocking revelations in the indictment, according to my colleague Maya Yang.We have a clip of the statement by Jack Smith, the US justice department special counsel who filed charges against Donald Trump.In a short address earlier today, Smith said his team would seek “a speedy trial” after the department unsealed a 37-count indictment against the former president.Donald Trump ally, Republican Arizona representative Andy Biggs responded to Trump’s indictment from the justice department by saying that “we have no reached a war phase.”Biggs, who previously spoke out against Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg over Trump’s indictment in March, went on to add:
      Eye for an eye.
      John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, has reacted to his former boss’s indictment, calling for his immediate withdrawal as a presidential candidate.With Donald Trump being the first US president to be federally indicted, what will come next? Will he go to prison? What are other Republicans, including his presidential contenders such as Florida governor Ron DeSantis, saying?The Guardian’s David Smith reports:It is often tempting to hype every Trump drama out of proportion and then lose sight of when something genuinely monumental has happened. Thursday night’s action by the justice department was genuinely monumental.First, it raises the question: what was Trump doing with government secrets? It was reported last month that prosecutors obtained an audio recording in which Trump talks about holding on to a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran.Second, Trump could soon join a notorious club that includes Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac of France and Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak of South Korea. All have been prosecuted and convicted of corruption in the past 15 years.It’s Trump’s latest stress test for American democracy: can the state hold a former president accountable and apply the rule of law? There was a near miss for Richard Nixon, who could have faced federal charges over Watergate but was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.The White House knows it cannot afford to put a foot wrong. Joe Biden tries to avoid commenting on Trump’s myriad legal troubles. The attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also kept them at arm’s length by appointing Jack Smith as special counsel. It is Smith who investigated the Mar-a-Lago documents case.Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, says: “I don’t think he’s an overreaching prosecutor. He’s very rigorous and vigorous and independent and that’s what you want here and that’s what’s needed. I don’t think Merrick Garland had anything to do with it except appointing him.”For the full story, click here:Here are some of the images coming out Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort where he has been accused of possessing classified documents: More

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      Indictment charging Trump with mishandling classified documents unsealed

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      Donald Trump twice disclosed national security information in separate incidents in 2021 and took steps to retain classified documents that he knew he could not keep because they had been subpoenaed by the justice department, according to a sprawling 38-count indictment unsealed Thursday.The charging papers also revealed Trump hoarded materials of the highest sensitivity after he left the White House, including documents on US nuclear programs, potential military vulnerabilities of the US and allies, and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack.The special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the Mar-a-Lago documents case, said in a brief remarks Friday that his office intended to seek “a speedy trial” against Trump, adding that was “consistent with the public interest”. However, Smith did not say exactly when a trial may be possible.The unsealed indictment named the former president’s valet, Walt Nauta, as a co-defendant, alleging that he entered into a conspiracy with Trump to obstruct justice, withheld documents or records, corruptly concealed documents in a federal investigation, engaged in a scheme to conceal and made false statements.“The purpose of the conspiracy was for Trump to keep classified documents he has taken with him from the White House and to hide and conceal them from a federal grand jury,” the indictment said.Federal prosecutors presented evidence that Trump shared materials concerning a US “plan of attack” against Iran at a July 2021 meeting at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, where he was recorded urging his guests to read the document while admitting it was “secret” and not declassified.The second incident in the indictment occurred months later in August or September 2021 when Trump shared a top secret military map with a staffer at his political action committee, but he admitted he should not be showing the map because it was classified and the staffer should not get too close.Both meetings appeared to demonstrate that Trump knew not only the contents of the documents were related to national defense information, as described in the statute Trump was charged under, and that he knew he was disseminating their contents to people unauthorized to see them.The manner in which the material was stored – stuffed in boxes piled up in various locations around Mar-a-Lago including the ballroom, a toilet and the storage room – meant that Trump employees without security clearances were also inadvertently exposed to classified information.In December 2021, the valet Nauta found that several boxes had toppled over and their contents – including a document marked “SECRET/REL TO USA, FVEY”. The markings indicate the document was releasable only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that includes the UK.Nauta texted another Trump employee: “I opened the door and found this…” and sent two photos of the spill. One of the photos showed classified information. The employee replied: “Oh no oh no” and “I’m sorry potus had my phone,” using the acronym for the former president.Prosecutors also presented detailed evidence that Trump moved to obstruct the criminal investigation by concealing classified documents from an attorney identified as his then-lawyer Evan Corcoran after the justice department issued a subpoena last May demanding their return.The indictment described how days after receiving the subpoena in late May 2022, Corcoran and another lawyer told Trump they needed to search Mar-a-Lago for any documents sought by the subpoena. But, according to the indictment, Trump was resistant.Trump asked Corcoran something to the effect of “What happens if we just don’t respond at all?” and “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”, according to Corcoran’s notes that prosecutors obtained during the investigation.Ordinarily off limits to prosecutors, the notes ended up before the grand jury in Washington hearing evidence in the case after a US appeals court pierced the attorney-client privilege Trump would otherwise have and ordered Corcoran to turn over his notes. The Guardian has previously revealed some of its contents.Corcoran then told Trump that he would return on 2 June 2022 to look in the Mar-a-Lago storage room for documents. In the intervening period, the indictment said, Trump instructed Nauta to remove boxes containing classified documents from where Corcoran intended to search.On 1 June 2022, Trump spoke with Corcoran and asked whether he was still coming to the property. The next morning, Trump spoke with Nauta for 24 seconds. Hours later, Nauta and another Trump employee moved 64 boxes from the storage room to Trump’s residence and returned only 30 boxes.Later that afternoon, after Nauta had put back some of the boxes, Nauta took Corcoran down to the storage room where he found 38 classified documents. After he finished his search, Trump is said to have asked Corcoran: “Did you find anything?… Is it bad? Good?”Corcoran recounted in his notes that Trump also made a “funny motion” when they were discussing whether Corcoran should take the 38 documents back with him to his hotel. As Corcoran described it, Trump seemed to indicate he should “pluck” any documents that were “bad”, without saying it explicitly.Criminal charges in the Mar-a-Lago documents case deepen the legal peril for Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, after he was indicted earlier this year on state charges in New York.Trump is expected to surrender himself to authorities in Miami – about 70 miles from Mar-a-Lago – on Tuesday at 3pm. Still, he remains a dominant force in the Republican party, easily holding off a wide field of challengers for the party’s nomination to go up against Joe Biden in a battle for the White House next year. More

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      Trump’s latest indictment: what do the charges mean and what’s next?

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      Donald Trump has been indicted for illegally retaining classified government documents after leaving office in 2021.What happens next and what do the charges mean for the former president and the 2024 election campaign?What is Trump accused of doing?Trump is being charged with 37 criminal counts, including mishandling classified documents and obstruction of justice, according to an indictment unsealed on Friday afternoon.He had proclaimed his innocence on Thursday evening.According to the indictment, Trump stored classified documents in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.It also added that Trump directed Walt Nauta, his valet and aide, to deliberately move boxes of records to “conceal them from Trump’s attorney, the FBI, and the grand jury”. Nauta also faces a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, said the indictment.In January 2022, Trump agreed to return 15 boxes of records to the US National Archives and Records Administration, and officials discovered in them more than 700 pages of records marked as classified.In August last year, the FBI conducted a search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, and seized approximately 13,000 more records, about 100 of which were marked as classified, including some marked top secret.What charges does Trump face?The most serious charge is being brought under the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the unauthorized possession of national defense information. It is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.The first world war-era law predates classification of documents but makes it a crime to willfully retain national defense information that could be useful to foreign adversaries.According to the indictment, documents possessed by Trump “included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack”.Trump is also charged with several counts of obstruction of justice, which criminalizes any “intent to impede, obstruct, or influence” an investigation and is also charged with making false statements to investigators.“The purpose of the conspiracy was for Trump to keep classified documents he has taken with him from the White House and to hide and conceal them from a federal grand jury,” the indictment said.What happens next?Trump said he had been summoned to appear in court on Tuesday afternoon in Miami. It was not immediately clear what the procedure would look like. When he was charged by the Manhattan district attorney in the New York Stormy Daniels case (a state case rather than federal), Trump surrendered to authorities, where he was booked behind closed doors and appeared in the courtroom, sitting with his lawyers at the defense table.In the Mar-a-Lago case, Trump is likely to surrender himself to the FBI, which has a field office in Miami some distance from the federal court. Normally, a defendant would be fingerprinted by prosecutors and have a mugshot taken. It is not known yet if Trump will have his picture taken and whether he will be processed in the FBI office or at the courthouse, before appearing before a judge to formally hear the charges against him read for the first time. He is expected to plead not guilty. After that arraignment, he would probably be released pending his next court appearance.Does an indictment prevent a candidate from campaigning or taking office?None of the charges expected to be unsealed would bar Trump from office if he became the Republican party nominee and then won the presidency at the 2024 election, even if convicted.A trial would take place many months from now, and Trump can freely campaign during this time. The US constitution only requires that presidential candidates be natural-born US citizens who are at least 35 years old and have lived in the country for 14 years.Trump said on Thursday on his Truth Social platform that he is innocent. He would be free to campaign even if he is convicted and sent to prison, and legal experts say there would be no basis to block his swearing-in as president even if he is incarcerated, though this would pose extraordinary logistical and security questions.What would happen if Trump took office while the Mar-a-Lago case is pending?It is unlikely that the prosecution would proceed if Trump won the November 2024 election.The US Department of Justice is part of the executive branch, and presidents are the top federal law enforcement officers in the country. Federal prosecutors generally serve at their pleasure. The justice department has a decades-old policy that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted. The department can deviate from policy in “extraordinary circumstances” with the approval of the US attorney general.Could Joe Biden pardon Trump?Yes.Could Trump, as president, pardon himself?Maybe. Many scholars have said a self-pardon would be unconstitutional because it violates the basic principle that nobody should be the judge in his or her own case. Others have argued that a self-pardon is constitutional because the pardon power is very broadly worded in the constitution. However, Trump could not pardon himself for a conviction in state court. He is currently under indictment in New York state court for allegedly using falsified records to conceal hush-money payments he paid to Stormy Daniels, and Georgia prosecutors are investigating his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Trump expected to surrender to Miami authorities on Tuesday after indictment

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      Donald Trump is preparing for his second arraignment in two months after learning he would face seven federal charges in connection to his mishandling of classified documents.The former US president and current 2024 candidate is expected to surrender himself to authorities in Miami on Tuesday at 3pm ET, although the exact charges he will face are still unclear, as the seven-count indictment remains under seal. On Fox News Digital on Thursday night, he said he would plead not guilty.It also emerged that Trump’s valet and aide Walt Nauta was indicted alongside him. Nauta is a former military valet who worked for Trump at the White House before accompanying him to a job at his Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago after Trump left office.In a typically punchy social media post Trump said: “They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about Trump.”After news of the indictment broke, Trump’s allies rallied to his defense as the US braced for the unprecedented spectacle of a former president forced to defend himself against federal criminal charges.The development comes just two months after Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in an unrelated case over hush-money payments during the 2016 election.The charges filed by the office of special counsel Jack Smith in federal district court in Miami include the willful retention of national defense information, obstruction of justice, conspiracy, false statements and concealment under title 18 of the US criminal code, according to a person familiar with the matter.Smith, appointed by the attorney general, Merrick Garland, has been investigating for more than a year whether Trump knowingly retained classified information at his Mar-a-Lago resort and attempted to conceal those documents from the justice department after authorities issued a subpoena for their return.Trump himself confirmed the indictment in a Thursday evening post on his social media platform Truth Social, writing: “This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America.”In a video posted to the platform shortly afterwards, Trump denied any culpability and lashed out against his political rivals. “I am an innocent man,” Trump said in the video. “I did nothing wrong.”Meanwhile, two lawyers representing Trump, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, said they had quit working for him. In a joint statement the pair said they had “tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation”.They added: “It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him, and we know he will be vindicated in his battle against the Biden administration’s partisan weaponization of the American justice system.”Though the exact nature of the charges remained unclear, Trump’s Republican allies on Capitol Hill quickly rallied to his defense, attacking the investigation as a case of political persecution. Many Republicans raced to note that Joe Biden is also under investigation by a special counsel over the alleged mishandling of classified papers, but they neglected to mention that Trump, unlike Biden, received a subpoena for classified documents amid concerns that he had willfully withheld some materials from federal authorities.“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America,” Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House speaker, said on Twitter on Thursday evening. “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice. House Republicans will hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”Trump’s most competitive rival for the Republican ticket, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, also denounced the justice department’s actions.“The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society,” he said on Twitter. “We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?”But Democrats viewed the news as confirmation that authorities were again seeking to hold Trump accountable for his illegal conduct.“Trump’s apparent indictment on multiple charges arising from his retention of classified materials is another affirmation of the rule of law,” Congressman Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, said on Twitter. “For four years, he acted like he was above the law. But he should be treated like any other lawbreaker. And today, he has been.”Later on Friday morning, it emerged that a federal judge appointed by Trump, who last year drew scrutiny for a ruling that was seen as deferential to the former president, may oversee proceedings in the case over his possession of classified documents, a source familiar with the summons told the Guardian.The US district judge Aileen Cannon has been listed on the summons sent to Trump’s lawyers, the source said. The Florida-based jurist last year granted a request from Trump’s attorneys to appoint a special master to review the records federal agents seized from Mar-a-Lago that August, sparking uproar and disapproval among some legal experts.The special master review delayed the justice department’s investigation into the materials and how they ended up at Trump’s south Florida property, but in December, Cannon’s decision was overturned by the unanimous decision of a federal appeals court.Meanwhile, on Friday morning CNN revealed a transcript it had obtained of an audio tape in which Trump admits he had not declassified a military document about Iran he had retained. The existence of the tape in which he boasts about retaining the document emerged last month.“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says, according to the transcript reported by CNN. The transcript offers further detail about the tape recording the former president talking at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in July 2021 about his retention of national security papers. Federal prosecutors have the tape.The latest indictment means Trump will face charges in at least two jurisdictions as he seeks to return to the White House next year. Trump continues to lead in polls of the Republican primary field, even after he was indicted in the hush-money case earlier this year.As of now, there is no sign that Republican primary voters are prepared to abandon Trump en masse, despite his many legal liabilities. The country will soon find out if the threat of a federal conviction is enough to rob Trump of his status as the frontrunner in the Republican primary. More

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      Could Trump go to jail? Federal charges over classified docs show momentum is building

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      He really might be going to jail.Donald Trump just became the first former president in American history to face federal criminal charges.On Thursday night it emerged that Trump had been indicted for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.He has reportedly been charged with seven counts including wilfully retaining national defence secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and an obstruction of justice conspiracy. He is due in court in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday afternoon.It is often tempting to hype every Trump drama out of proportion and then lose sight of when something genuinely monumental has happened. Thursday night’s action by the justice department was genuinely monumental.First, it begs the question: what was Trump doing with government secrets? It was reported last month that prosecutors obtained an audio recording in which Trump talks about holding on to a classified Pentagon document related to a potential attack on Iran.Second, Trump could soon join a notorious club that includes Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac of France and Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak of South Korea. All have been prosecuted and convicted of corruption in the past 15 years.It’s Trump’s latest stress test for American democracy: can the state hold a former president accountable and apply the rule of law? There was a near miss for Richard Nixon, who could have faced federal charges over Watergate but was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.The White House knows it cannot afford to put a foot wrong. Joe Biden tries to avoid commenting on Trump’s myriad legal troubles. Attorney general Merrick Garland has also kept them at arm’s length by appointing Jack Smith as special counsel. It is Smith who investigated the Mar-a-Lago documents case.Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in Virginia, says: “I don’t think he’s an overreaching prosecutor. He’s very rigorous and vigorous and independent and that’s what you want here and that’s what’s needed. I don’t think Merrick Garland had anything to do with it except appointing him.”But what of the Republican party? Did it solemnly accept news of the indictment and call on Americans to allow justice to take its course? Did the Trump fever finally break, with party leaders denouncing the old demagogue and ushering in a new era?It did not.“It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him,” tweeted Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives. “I, and every American who believes in the rule of law, stand with President Trump against this grave injustice.”Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and chief rival to Trump in the Republican presidential primary election, wrote on Twitter: “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society …. Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?”Senator JD Vance of Ohio described it as a “sham indictment”, senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee compared the US to a “banana republic” and senator Josh Hawley of Missouri told Fox News “if the president in power can just jail his political opponents, which is what Joe Biden is trying to do tonight, we don’t have a republic any more.”Trump’s base will be equally unmoved. They will swallow his claim of “election interference” by his enemies. They will say both Biden and former vice-president Mike Pence were also caught with classified documents while forgetting – or wilfully ignoring – that Biden and Pence complied with the authorities while Trump allegedly obstructed justice.They will also point to House Republicans’ increasingly noisy bribery allegations against Biden and his family (for which they have provided no evidence) as proof of a double standard. A Fox News interview with congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was accompanied by the chyron: “Trump indicted on same day Burisma scandal potentially confirmed,” – the word potentially doing an awful lot of work.In short, this is less a gamechanger than a replay of less than three months ago when Trump was charged by state prosecutors in New York with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records over a hush money payment to an adult film star. The former president saturated the news cycle, enjoyed a boost in the polls and forced his primary rivals to rally around him. He raised more than $4m in the 24 hours after the indictment became public.The same rinse, repeat cycle seems likely if and when Trump is hit by even more charges over the January 6 insurrection and election tampering in Georgia. But there is a sense of gathering momentum, as the electoral calendar and legal calendar hurtle towards a great collision.Could Trump accept the Republican nomination while wearing an ankle bracelet? Could he run against Biden from a prison cell? Could the American presidency become the ultimate get-out-of-jail card? Today’s jokey speculation has a habit of becoming tomorrow’s headline news. More