Miles J. Herszenhorn
A federal grand jury took an unprecedented step Thursday when it indicted former President Donald Trump, bringing federal charges against a former president for the first time in U.S. history.
But just 90 minutes after Trump learned of his second indictment while meeting with a group of political advisers at his club in Bedminster, New Jersey, he was eating dinner outdoors and blasting his favorite tunes from an iPad, according to a New York Times report.
Wearing a red Make America Great Again baseball cap, the former president became the night’s DJ and selected songs from opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley, and James Brown, anonymous sources told the New York Times.
A few hours earlier, Trump rushed to seize control of the narrative after learning about his imminent indictment from a phone call. He took to his social media platform to announce the news of the forthcoming criminal charges against him.
“I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post at 7:25 p.m on Thursday. “I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States.”
“I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!” he added.
Trump was indicted Thursday on seven counts related to the seizure of over 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago in summer 2022, more than a year after he departed the White House. The documents had labels suggesting that they contained some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets and related to matters of national defense.
He was previously indicted in March on charges related to a New York state criminal case.
Trump and his team planned in advance to utilize his indictment for political gain and fundraising purposes. When it became clear that Trump would soon face federal charges, his team prerecorded a video in which Trump reacted to the expected charges, the New York Times reported.
In the video, which Trump posted on Truth Social just 30 minutes after breaking news of his own indictment, the former president claimed without evidence that the charges were an attempt at sabotaging his 2024 presidential bid.
“It’s election interference at the highest level,” Trump said. “There’s never been anything like what’s happened.”
