INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Former US President Donald Trump has been charged over his handling of classified documents after he left the White House.Mr Trump, 76,
faces seven counts, including mishandling classified documents and obstructing efforts to investigate the storage of the files at his
Florida home, his lawyer said.Both are federal crimes which can carry a prison sentence on conviction.Mr Trump is campaigning to make a
return to the White House in 2024.Legal experts say the indictment does not prevent him running for the presidency again.It is the second
time Mr Trump has been charged with a crime, but now he is facing a federal case
These typically carry harsher sentences.He is the first former president ever to be criminally prosecuted by the government he once
headed.In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Mr Trump said he had been summoned to appear on Tuesday afternoon at a federal court in Miami,
the details were laid out by his lawyer Jim Trusty
He told CNN they include conspiracy, false statements, obstruction of justice, and illegally retaining classified documents under the
Espionage Act.Mr Trump was at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday when news of the indictment broke.On Friday, the US
presented evidence in court in Washington DC, but a decision to file the indictment in southern Florida instead may offer some consolation
for the Trump team.Legal experts say the state - where the former Republican president is popular - is likely to produce a less
documents has been overseen by special prosecutor Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November.Mr Smith, a
case, prosecutors have said that Mr Trump took about 300 classified files to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White
House.About 100 of those - some labelled top secret - were sedzed when the FBI searched the Palm Beach mansion last August.Reports surfaced
last week that prosecutors had obtained an audio recording of Mr Trump acknowledging he kept a classified document after leaving the White
Transcripts of that tape circulated in US media on Friday.It is against US law for federal officials - including a president - to remove or
Centre.Opinion polls show Mr Trump is currently the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination
charged with a crime in April, after he pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records over a hush-money payment to a porn
star.He faces a trial in that case in New York next year.Adding to his legal jeopardy, a prosecutor in Georgia is expected to announce this
summer whether Mr Trump will be charged over alleged efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in that state.Source
