By Maureen Chowdhury, Tori B. Powell and Matt Meyer, CNN
From CNN's Paula Reid and Kristen Holmes
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted in the Justice Department investigation into the misuse of classified documents, a source familiar with the matter said.
Trump has been charged with seven counts, according to a source.
This marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges, and it is the second time Trump has been charged criminally this year
Trump also posted on Truth Social that he has been indicted.
From CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Paula Reid, Sara Murray, Jeremy Herb and Kristen Holmes
The Justice Department had informed Donald Trump’s legal team that he was a target in the federal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified documents, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The sources were informed of the target letter and its contents but had not seen it themselves.
Prosecutors’ decision to inform Trump he’s a target crystallized that special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation was focused on Trump’s actions and not just the actions of people around him.
Justice Department regulations allow for prosecutors to notify subjects of an investigation that they have become a target. The notifications aren’t required, and prosecutors can use their discretion. Once informed, a target has the opportunity to present evidence or testify to the grand jury if they choose.
Trump, in a recent interview with The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, would not say whether he had been told he was a target in the special counsel’s investigation, but he denied that he had been told he would be indicted.
Multiple people who talked to Trump at length the early June told CNN they were confused by the news and said Trump did not raise that he was a target or seemed agitated.
Read more about the letter here.
CNN's Holmes Lybrand and Tierney Sneed contributed reporting.
From CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Evan Perez
Special counsel prosecutors secured evidence including daily notes, texts, emails and photographs and were focused on cataloging how Donald Trump handled classified records around the Mar-a-Lago resort and those who may have witnessed the former president with them, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.
The recent investigative activity before a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, includes subpoenaing witnesses in March and April who had previously spoken to investigators, the sources said. While the FBI interviewed many aides and workers at Mar-a-Lago nearly a year ago voluntarily, grand jury appearances are transcribed and under-oath – an indication the prosecutors are locking in witness testimony.
Another source familiar with the matter told CNN that Secret Service agents tasked with protecting the former president have been called to testify. The number of agents remains unclear. Fox first reported on the development.
The focus of both the mishandling of records and obstruction of justice probes has remained on the actions of the former president, the multiple sources familiar said. That includes prosecutors pursuing evidence of Trump’s intent to keep classified records after he left the White House, plus his knowledge that the records remained in his possession after the Justice Department demanded their return last May.
From CNN's Dan Berman
Special counsel Jack Smith has been overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
The Justice Department investigation has looked into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury has interviewed potential witnesses regarding how Trump handled the documents.
Agents first subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage last summer, before the August search by the FBI. But as more classified documents were found through the end of last year, investigators sought more surveillance footage from the Trump Organization, sources tell CNN.
That included an additional subpoena after the FBI search in August and a request from the Justice Department for the Trump Organization to preserve additional footage in late October, according to one of the sources.
The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.
Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz, Jeremy Herb and Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting to this post.
From CNN's Kristen Holmes, Katelyn Polantz and Hannah Rabinowitz
Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, testified to a federal grand jury as part of special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing investigation into the former president, according to one source familiar with the matter.
Meadows was asked about the former president’s handling of classified documents as well as efforts to overturn the 2020 election, another source familiar with the matter said.
George Terwilliger, a lawyer representing Meadows, said in a statement that “Without commenting on whether or not Mr. Meadows has testified before the grand jury or in any other proceeding, Mr. Meadows has maintained a commitment to tell the truth where he has a legal obligation to do so.”
A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment. The New York Times first reported on Meadow’s appearance before the grand jury.
Meadows is viewed as a critical witness to Smith’s investigation. He was ordered to testify before the grand jury and to provide documents after a judge rejected Trump’s claims of executive privilege.
His testimony could provide investigators key insight into the former president’s actions and mental state following the election he lost to Joe Biden as well as into Trump’s actions after he left office in January 2021.
CNN previously reported that Meadows, under subpoena, turned over some materials to the Justice Department as part of their investigation.
More background: Multiple sources told CNN last week that Smith has focused on a meeting related to Meadows as part of his criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of documents. Two people working on the former chief of staff’s autobiography attended a meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, in July 2021 where Trump acknowledged he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, the sources said. The meeting was recorded, but it is unknown from where the Justice Department first obtained the recording. Meadows didn’t attend the meeting.
A source close to Trump’s legal team told CNN earlier in May that Trump’s lawyers had had no contact with Meadows and his team and were in the dark on what Meadows is doing in the investigation. Meadows’ silence has irked lawyers representing other defendants aligned with Trump who have been more open, several sources familiar with the Trump-aligned legal teams said at the time. In particular, they pointed to a $900,000 payment Trump’s Save America political action committee paid to the firm representing Meadows, McGuireWoods, at the end of last year.
Meadows’ testimony and records were hotly pursued in multiple investigations around January 6 and the 2020 election, although he had stopped short of providing answers to the House select committee and a criminal investigation in Fulton County, Georgia.
Keep reading here.
From CNN's Zachary Cohen, Kara Scannell, Jeremy Herb, Katelyn Polantz and Chandelis Duster
Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.
Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.
In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”
“The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” Smith said.
A career prosecutor: Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.
As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.
Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.
Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.
As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.
Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.
Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”
Read more about Smith's career here.
From CNN's Zachary B. Wolf
The 2021 audio tape of former President Donald Trump acknowledging he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran is a key example of what special counsel prosecutors are looking at in the case against Trump regarding the alleged mishandling of records and obstruction of justice.
The recording – which was reported exclusively by CNN – undermines all the arguments from Trump about his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House. The former president has denied all wrongdoing.
CNN’s Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz, part of the reporting team that uncovered the existence of the 2021 recording, weighed in on some of the reasons why these new developments are so important and why the federal investigation is taking so long:
What does the tape mean? First of all, it’s an audio tape that the Justice Department has, which is a big deal on its own because an audio tape is evidence. And from all of the former prosecutors we’ve talked to, this is the type of evidence that would be admissible in court – that was legally recorded. We don’t know what the actual words on the tape are and what you can hear Trump saying, but the way it’s been described to us is that it makes it abundantly clear that it captures Trump’s knowledge that he:
So that’s all very significant. Whether or not it’s declassified – his team spends a lot of time focusing on that, whether he had this ability to declassify – that’s actually not what the law is about.
What we know about how or when the special counsel got the recording? We’re still trying to learn more details about that, but we do know that a key moment in this part of the investigation happens in mid-March of this year. That is when one of the aides to Donald Trump, Margo Martin, who was in this meeting at Bedminster, makes a grand jury appearance in Washington, DC. We saw her and we reported it when she went in. Our understanding is that at some point after that, the Trump legal team begins to understand that this tape is in the hands of the Justice Department. But it’s entirely possible they knew about it before then.
From CNN's Dan Berman
The Justice Department's investigation into the removal of presidential documents to Florida is only one of several legal dramas Donald Trump is facing.
In New York, a hush money payment to an adult film star resulted in his indictment by a Manhattan grand jury over his alleged role in the scheme – the first time in American history that a current or former president faces criminal charges.
Also in Manhattan, a federal jury found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million in the battery and defamation civil case.
In Atlanta, a select grand jury has investigated the efforts by Trump and allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.
Trump and his company deny any wrongdoing or criminality in all matters, state and federal, and he has aggressively maintained his innocence.
Here’s an updated list of notable investigations, lawsuits and controversies.