President Donald Trump

The federal government has charged former president Donald Trump for keeping dozens of classified papers in his Florida property and refusing to turn them over to the FBI or the National Archives.

According to a person current with the accusations, he is facing seven different charges, including the voluntarily withholding of material related to national defense, at least one charge of making false statements, and at least one charge of entrapment. The federal grand jury's Miami indictment records have not been made public.

"I would never have believed that something like this could happen to a former president of the United States, who has received much more support than any other president in our nation's history and who is currently leading all of the presidential candidates, both democratic and Republican, by a significant margin in the polls. I am an innocent person. Trump made a statement in a message on his platform Truth Social.

Trump said in a statement that he had been summoned to appear before a federal court in Miami on Tuesday.

The investigation has been more intense in recent days, and Trump's attorneys met with Justice Department officials in Washington, DC, earlier this week to try to distance themselves from the allegations.

Speaking on behalf of the DOJ's special attorney, Jack Smith, said that he had no more comment at this time. Smith, a veteran prosecutor of public corruption and war crimes, also oversees the investigation into the key elements of the 6 January 2021 conspiracy to invalidate presidential election results.

The legal crisis in Florida results from the conviction of 34 defendants earlier this year on charges of falsifying commercial records by a Manhattan grand jury that worked closely with district attorney Alvin Bragg. In this accounting dispute centered on covert payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of the 2016 season at the Maison Blanche, Trump has asserted his innocence.

Despite admitting that he had reimbursed Cohen for the money that had been given to Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, Trump denied ever having a relationship with her.

In Georgia, the Fulton County Prosecutor is conducting a third investigation into the alleged efforts made by Trump to exert pressure on the state's elected officials.

Despite his felony convictions, the former president promised to continue his campaign to retake the White House in 2024. After the allegations against him were made public in New York this year, Trump received millions of dollars in donations. He continues to lead a small number of Republican primary candidates.

The controversy surrounding Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida erupted in the media in August 2022 when FBI investigators carried out a search warrant at the property while Trump was out of town.

Later, General Prosecutor Merrick Garland told reporters that he had personally approved the search warrant. Additionally, a federal judge signed the warrant after reading an FBI undercover statement. The document states that there are reasons to believe that evidence, contraband, criminally obtained goods, or other illegally owned items were stored inadvertently at various Mar-a-Lago locations.The authorities have recovered highly classified papers, some of which were so sensitive that the government officials involved in the perquisition lacked the security clearance necessary to review them. This information was discovered in response to a letter from Trump's attorney stating that they had conducted a "assidue" search for government secrets on the website but had not yet found any.

This year, in an unusual turn of events, a judge in DC discovered grounds to suspect that Trump may have used his attorney to break the law in regard to the documents from Mar-a-Lago. As a result, Judge Beryl Howell rejected Trump's requests for attorney-client confidentiality and gave the Justice Department permission to move on. This attorney, Evan Corcoran, has been seen in recent weeks in the federal courthouse, making an apparent appearance before a grand jury in closed session.

When the matter is brought before the courts as evidence of Trump's state of mind, his own public statements may be used against him.

"Remember this: it's the law with presidential dossiers. I have the right to take action, Trump said to Fox News host Sean Hannity in March 2023. I have the right to see things. They do, however, have the right to speak, and we do, too.