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Donald Trump said he expected to be charged later on Tuesday in connection with a special counsel probe into alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 US election.
In a post on his social networking site, Truth Social, the former president said that US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, would be “putting out yet another Fake Indictment of your favorite President” on Tuesday afternoon, “in order to interfere with the Presidential Election of 2024”.
Trump accused Smith of timing the indictment “to put it right in the middle of my campaign”. He already faces federal criminal charges over the handling of classified documents, and state charges over alleged hush money payments made in the run-up to the 2016 election.
US media reported that the grand jury hearing evidence in the probe had returned a single sealed indictment on Tuesday afternoon. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
Smith is investigating alleged meddling in the results of the 2020 election and attempts to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. The probe has focused on the actions of Trump, as well as his allies and supporters, in the lead up to the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Trump said last month he had received a letter from the DoJ informing him he was the target of a grand jury investigation, which he described as a “witch hunt”. Members of Trump’s legal team last week met prosecutors from Smith’s office.
The DoJ’s January 6 probe is widely seen as one of the most serious legal challenges facing Trump, who is fighting multiple criminal cases.
It would be the second set of charges brought by Smith, who was appointed by US attorney-general Merrick Garland to oversee probes involving the ex-president.
Trump in June was indicted on numerous criminal counts including conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents in a federal investigation and making false statements. The case was linked to sensitive government files seized by the FBI at his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. Trump pleaded not guilty in what was the first federal criminal case against a former US president.
The DoJ added new charges in a superseding indictment filed last week that accused Trump of attempting to have surveillance video footage at Mar-a-Lago deleted. The ex-president has called the move a “desperate” attempt to “harass” him.
Trump, the frontrunner in the race to become the Republican presidential candidate in 2024, has vowed to move ahead with his campaign despite mounting legal risks. He has described the cases against him as a “disgrace” and as “election interference” by the Biden administration.
A further legal hurdle looms in the state of Georgia, where a special grand jury has been investigating alleged interference by the ex-president and others in the 2020 polls. If Fani Willis, district attorney for Fulton County, decides to bring charges in this separate case, they are widely expected to materialise later in the summer.
The ex-president in April pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney. Trump was accused of masterminding a scheme to quash damaging stories threatening his presidential candidacy in 2016, which included a payment to an adult film actress in exchange for her silence.
