Former President Donald Trump has been charged with mishandling classified documents and has been subpoenaed to appear before a federal judge in Miami, he announced Thursday.

He has been indicted on seven counts – and is now the first former president to face federal charges.

A source told DailyMail.com that Trump has been charged with possession of the classified documents and obstruction, with all seven counts related to those two areas.

Additionally, That reported the New York Time that Trump was charged with willfully withholding national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and obstructing justice.

It is the second set of charges this year against Trump, which plunge the country into fresh legal and political uncertainty as he campaigns to get back to business.

Prosecutors have been investigating the transfer of presidential files to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida since last year.

The investigation made headlines in August when the FBI searched Trump’s Florida home and recovered 11,000 documents, including about 100 classified as classified.

For his part, Trump has repeatedly maintained that he has done nothing wrong and that he is the victim of a federal witch hunt.

At times, the controversy has even boosted his standing in the polls and allowed him to raise money from supporters who see a “deep state” plot to take him out of the 2024 race.

“The corrupt Biden administration has informed my lawyers that I have been charged, apparently because of the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1,850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., and more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents scattered across his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, which is “secured” only by a garage door that is paper thin and open much of the time,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday night.

“I have been subpoenaed to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami at 3 p.m. Tuesday. I never imagined that something like this could happen to a former president of the United States, who has received far more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country, and currently leads the vast majority of candidates, both Democrat and the president. Republican, in 2024 presidential election polls. I’M AN INNOCENT MAN!’

He released a video later on Thursday night.

“Unfortunately we are a nation in decline and yet they are chasing after a very popular president,” Trump said.

Security around the Miami courthouse is already being heightened ahead of his appearance before a judge, scheduled for 3 p.m. on Tuesday.

The investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents is overseen by a special counsel, Jack Smith, who was appointed in November by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

On Monday, Trump’s lawyers met with Smith and his team in Washington, DC

On Wednesday, it was confirmed that Trump was an official target of the investigation.

Trump himself is currently in Bedminster, New Jersey, huddled with his advisers.

Earlier this week, Trump took to his social media platform to condemn reports of impending charges.

“Wow, this turns out to be the biggest and baddest example of election interference in our country’s history,” he wrote on Truth Social.

He had already earned the status of the first former president to face criminal charges. They relate to a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

In April, he appeared in Manhattan District Court charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged plot to conceal harmful information from voters before the 2016 election.

Trump pleaded not guilty.

Legal analysts believe the documents case could be legally more difficult for the former president.

For the past year, a grand jury has heard testimony from Mar-a-Lago employees and former government officials who worked in Trump’s post-presidential office.

One of the last witnesses was Mark Meadows, Trump’s last White House chief of staff.

And Taylor Budowich, who served as Trump’s spokesman after his presidency and heads a pro-Trump political action committee, confirmed that he also testified.

“Today, in what can only be described as a phony and deeply disturbing attempt to use government power to ‘get’ Trump, I have complied with a legal obligation to testify before a federal grand jury and have question answered honestly,” he said. wrote on Twitter.

The Messenger reported this on Thursday that a second person in addition to Trump is expected to be charged.

Smith’s team has not commented on the allegations, which remain classified.

If he is charged and convicted of obstruction of justice or sharing classified information, he risks much harsher penalties than those potentially at stake in his Manhattan case.

Under the Presidential Records Act, all records of a presidential administration are owned by the federal government and go to the National Archives (NARA) after the end of a presidency.

Trump has said he thought they belonged to him.

He told a CNN town hall last month that he had the right to take the documents, claiming that other presidents took documents with them when they left the White House — including Barack Obama, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

“The Presidential Records Act is not a criminal offence,” he said.

‘I brought the documents. I like it. Do you know who else took them? Obama took them, Nixon took them. Reagan took them.”

Trump’s claim was false.

NARA was given custody of the presidential records of former presidents, beginning with Ronald Reagan, once these presidents left office, as required by the Presidential Records Act.

The Justice Department has been investigating possible misuse of classified material by Trump for about a year.

A grand jury has heard testimony from dozens of witnesses at the federal courthouse in downtown Washington in recent months.

The news of the indictment came days after it emerged that a storage facility at Mar-a-Lago where CCTV footage had been flooded.

The flooding occurred while a swimming pool was being pumped out, it was reported on Monday.

Prosecutors wanted the footage track how White House records were moved around Trump’s residence in Palm Beach.

It’s unclear if the room was flooded on purpose or if it was a mistake.

Prosecutors are investigating whether there was an attempt by Trump or his associates to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation after Trump received a subpoena for classified documents in May 2022.

Trump continues to deny any wrongdoing and claims to be the victim of a politically charged investigation led by prosecutors who do not want him to run for president again.

Prosecutors have targeted Trump, his bodyman Walt Nauta and a maintenance worker who helped Nauta move boxes of classified documents before federal agents searched the property in their investigation last summer.

The maintenance worker is the person who emptied the pool, flooding the IT room where the surveillance footage was kept, CNN reported.

Smith is also investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election — the subject of a similar, ongoing investigation by Atlanta prosecutors.

Prosecutors in New York charged Trump earlier this year with falsifying business records.