Members of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal grand jury investigating Donald Trump for alleged crimes surrounding the 2020 presidential election arrived early at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse in Washington, D.C. Tuesday morning, some nearly two hours ahead of the 10:00 AM time they usually convene. And over the past eight hours, Donald Trump has had a social media meltdown on his Truth Social platform, “retruthing” over 55 posts.
Some are expecting the grand jury to hand down an indictment against Donald Trump as early as today. MSNBC notes Trump has no public events scheduled until Friday.
Sixteen days ago the ex-president’s attorneys, he has said, received a target letter from the Special Counsel’s office informing them their client was the target of the investigation into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his role in the January 6 insurrection. On Thursday Trump’s attorneys met with members of Smith’s team, and were told, according to multiple news reports, their client would be indicted.
An indictment came late Thursday – a superseding indictment in a separate case, the case Trump was already facing 37 federal felony counts mostly under the Espionage Act, for his mishandling of classified documents.
For a while after that indictment, Trump’s social media postings appeared more focused on the 2024 election, but overnight the twice-indicted and twice-impeached one-term ex-president’s Truth Social account exploded, with the more than 55 “retruths” of his and others’ posts.
The posts, mostly focused on his legal crises, feature repeated complaints about Hillary Clinton’s emails, “the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” the “Mar-a-Lago security tapes,” the “Crooked Election Interference ‘Thugs’ from the DOJ,” and, his claim “The Radical Left Democrat Thugs shouldn’t be allowed to investigate me during, and in the middle of, my campaign for President,” among many others, like this one from Monday:
“I assume that an Indictment from Deranged Jack Smith and his highly partisan gang of Thugs, pertaining to my ‘PEACEFULLY & PATRIOTICALLY Speech, will be coming out any day now, as yet another attempt to cover up all of the bad news about bribes, payoffs, and extortion, coming from the Biden ‘camp.’ This seems to be the way they do it. ELECTION INTERFERENCE! PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!”
Politico’s Kyle Cheney Tuesday morning reports: “Vibe at the courthouse is … anxious. Higher than usual security presence for this early in the morning. Indications of activity around the grand jury room.”
Former federal prosecutor, now an MSNBC legal analyst, Cynthia Alksne opined on the possibility of an indictment Tuesday morning: “I think it’s coming today.”