Former US president Donald Trump said he has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
New federal charges, on top of existing state and federal counts in New York and Florida and a separate election interference investigation nearing conclusion in Georgia, would add to the list of legal problems for Mr Trump as he pursues the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Mr Trump disclosed the existence of a target letter in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying he received it on Sunday night and that he anticipates being indicted.
Such a letter often precedes an indictment and is used to advise individuals under investigation that prosecutors have gathered evidence linking them to a crime; Mr Trump, for instance, received one soon before being charged last month in a separate investigation into the illegal retention of classified documents.
A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, whose office is leading the investigation, declined to comment.
Legal experts have said potential charges could include conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case Congress’s certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Mr Smith’s team has cast a broad net in its investigation into attempts by Mr Trump and his allies to block the transfer of power to Mr Biden in the days leading up to the January 6 riot at the US Capitol, when Trump loyalists stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of state electoral votes in Congress.
More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the riot have been charged.
Mr Smith’s probe has centred on a broad range of efforts by Mr Trump and allies to keep him in office, including the role played by lawyers in pressing for the overturning of results as well as plans for slates of fake electors in multiple battleground states won by Mr Biden to submit false electoral certificates to Congress.
Prosecutors have questioned multiple Trump administration officials before a grand jury in Washington, including former vice president Mike Pence, who was repeatedly pressured by Mr Trump to ignore his constitutional duty and block the counting in Congress of electoral votes on January 6.
They have also interviewed other Trump advisers, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as local election officials in states including Michigan and New Mexico who endured a pressure campaign from the then-president about overturning election results in their states.
A lawyer for Mr Giuliani, who participated in a voluntary interview, said on Tuesday that he did not receive a target letter.
Mr Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and did so again in his Tuesday post, writing: “Under the United States Constitution, I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen. just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016, and many others have done over the ages.”
Mr Trump remains the Republican Party’s dominant frontrunner, despite indictments in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign and in Florida, which seem to have had little impact on his standing in the crowded Republican field.
The indictments have also helped his campaign raise millions of dollars from supporters, though he raised far less after the second than the first, raising questions about whether subsequent charges will have the same impact.
Asked about the letter during a press conference in South Carolina, Florida governor Ron DeSantis, Mr Trump’s most serious challenger, said he had not seen it and “can’t speak about that”, but delivered his most forceful critique to date of Mr Trump’s inaction on January 6.
“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on. He should have come out more forcefully,” Mr DeSantis said.
However, he added: “But to try to criminalise that, that’s a different issue entirely.”
Mr Trump was to travel to Iowa on Tuesday, where he was taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
One purpose of a target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury.
Mr Trump said in his post that he has been given “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment”.
Aides did not immediately respond to questions seeking further information.
Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a separate investigation into efforts by Mr Trump to reverse his election loss in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signalling that she expects to announce charging decisions next month.
In his post on Tuesday, Mr Trump wrote that “they have now effectively indicted me three times … with a probably fourth coming from Atlanta”, and added in capital letters: “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement.”
Mr Trump was indicted last month on 37 federal felony counts in relation to accusations of illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago.
He has pleaded not guilty.
A pre-trial conference in that case was held on Tuesday in Fort Pierce, Florida, where a judge said she expected to soon decide on a trial date.
