What to know:

— Trump faces a string of in­quiries in var­i­ous states and venues as he cam­paigns for a re­turn to the White House

— Trump’s case dif­fers from those of oth­er politi­cians known to be in pos­ses­sion of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments

— Signs that Trump could face crim­i­nal charges be­gan to pile up this month

— Who is Jack Smith, the spe­cial coun­sel over­see­ing probes in­to the re­ten­tion of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments?

— In spite of le­gal woes and crowd­ed GOP field, Trump has re­mained Re­pub­li­cans’ fron­trun­ner for 2024

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De­moc­rats say in­dict­ment shows Trump isn’t above the law

While Re­pub­li­cans ac­cuse the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment of po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion, House De­moc­rats say Don­ald Trump’s in­dict­ment is an af­fir­ma­tion of the U.S. jus­tice sys­tem.

“For four years, he act­ed like he was above the law. But he should be treat­ed like any oth­er law­break­er. And to­day, he has been,” tweet­ed Rep. Adam Schiff of Cal­i­for­nia, who rose to na­tion­al promi­nence as the lead pros­e­cu­tor in Trump’s first im­peach­ment tri­al.

“To­day’s fed­er­al grand ju­ry in­dict­ment tells us that for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump put our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in grave dan­ger as he pur­sued yet an­oth­er law­less per­son­al agen­da by pil­fer­ing and hoard­ing gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments,” said a state­ment from Rep. Jamie Raskin of Mary­land, who was House man­ag­er for Trump’s sec­ond im­peach­ment and is the rank­ing mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee on Over­sight and Ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He ac­cused Re­pub­li­cans of “try­ing to di­vide the coun­try and un­der­cut our le­gal sys­tem.”

“He will have his day in court, in Mi­a­mi and Man­hat­tan and At­lanta too if it comes to it,” tweet­ed Rep. Jer­ry Nadler of New York, al­so ref­er­enc­ing a New York in­dict­ment in a hush mon­ey case and an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in Geor­gia. “But I am grate­ful to live in a na­tion where no man is above the law.”

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De­San­tis says his ri­val is vic­tim of po­lit­i­cal ‘weaponiza­tion’

Flori­da Gov. Ron De­San­tis is con­demn­ing the in­dict­ment of Don­ald Trump, his chief ri­val for the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, as a po­lit­i­cal hatch­et job.

“The weaponiza­tion of fed­er­al law en­force­ment rep­re­sents a mor­tal threat to a free so­ci­ety. We have for years wit­nessed an un­even ap­pli­ca­tion of the law de­pend­ing up­on po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion,” De­San­tis tweet­ed.

“Why so zeal­ous in pur­su­ing Trump yet so pas­sive about Hillary or Hunter?” he adds.

De­San­tis al­so promised to end what he called po­lit­i­cal bias and to “bring ac­count­abil­i­ty” to the De­part­ment of Jus­tice if elect­ed.

Oth­er high-rank­ing Re­pub­li­cans, in­clud­ing House Speak­er Kevin Mc­Carthy, have used sim­i­lar lan­guage in their re­spons­es to the in­dict­ment, which they are por­tray­ing as po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion.

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Mc­Carthy says in­dict­ment ‘un­con­scionable’

House Speak­er Kevin Mc­Carthy tweet­ed that “it is un­con­scionable for a Pres­i­dent to in­dict the lead­ing can­di­date op­pos­ing him.”

The Re­pub­li­can added, “I, and every Amer­i­can who be­lieves in the rule of law, stand with Pres­i­dent Trump against this grave in­jus­tice.”

Mc­Carthy said the House GOP “will hold this brazen weaponiza­tion of pow­er ac­count­able.”

House Ma­jor­i­ty Leader Steve Scalise, mean­while, said the in­dict­ment was a “sham” and “the con­tin­u­a­tion of the end­less po­lit­i­cal per­se­cu­tion of Don­ald Trump.”

“Let’s be clear about what’s hap­pen­ing: Joe Biden is weaponiz­ing his De­part­ment of Jus­tice against his own po­lit­i­cal ri­val,” Scalise tweet­ed.

Back­ground on Trump's DOJ doc­u­ment case

The his­toric fed­er­al in­dict­ment of Don­ald Trump stems from the al­leged mis­han­dling of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments that left the White House with the for­mer pres­i­dent and then end­ed up at his Flori­da es­tate. (June 8)

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Fed­er­al agents head­ed to Mi­a­mi

The Jus­tice De­part­ment and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty are send­ing ad­di­tion­al fed­er­al agents to Mi­a­mi ahead of Trump’s ex­pect­ed court ap­pear­ance in the com­ing days, a per­son fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter told the AP. The per­son spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty in or­der to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive se­cu­ri­ty plans.

Trump said he is due in court Tues­day af­ter­noon there.

Mean­while, the De­part­ment of Jus­tice head­quar­ters in Wash­ing­ton were qui­et late Thurs­day, with few peo­ple in the hall­ways and no pub­lic sign of At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land.

— Mike Bal­samo

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Trump al­lies de­nounce in­dict­ment

Sup­port­ers of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump re­act­ed with anger Thurs­day to the news of the fed­er­al in­dict­ment and crit­i­cized the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion. The White House de­clined to com­ment and re­ferred ques­tions to the De­part­ment of Jus­tice.

“The Biden Regime, which is re­al­iz­ing they can’t beat or cheat their way to an­oth­er vic­to­ry, has tak­en the un­prece­dent­ed step to in­dict Pres­i­dent Trump,” said Karo­line Leav­itt, a spokesper­son for Make Amer­i­ca Great Again Inc., a su­per PAC back­ing Trump’s bid for a re­turn to the White House.

A White House of­fi­cial said it had no fore­knowl­edge of the in­dict­ment and learned of it from news re­ports.

In an in­ter­view Thurs­day night on Fox News, Sen. Tim Scott said he felt the jus­tice sys­tem’s “scales are weight­ed” based on pol­i­tics.

“In Amer­i­ca, every sin­gle per­son is pre­sumed in­no­cent, not guilty,” Scott said, de­cry­ing “the weaponiza­tion of the De­part­ment of Jus­tice against the for­mer pres­i­dent.”

Scott said he had not spo­ken to Trump and would “con­tin­ue to pray for our na­tion and con­tin­ue to pray that jus­tice pre­vails.”

— Zeke Miller

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AP sources con­firm in­dict­ment

Two peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter who were not au­tho­rized to dis­cuss it pub­licly said Trump’s team had been in­formed that he’s been in­dict­ed on sev­en counts and that pros­e­cu­tors had con­tact­ed lawyers to ad­vise them of the in­dict­ment short­ly be­fore Trump an­nounced it him­self on his Truth So­cial plat­form.

“This is in­deed a DARK DAY for the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,” Trump post­ed. “We are a Coun­try in se­ri­ous and rapid De­cline, but to­geth­er we will Make Amer­i­ca Great Again!”

With­in 20 min­utes of his an­nounce­ment, Trump, who said he was due in court Tues­day af­ter­noon in Mi­a­mi, had be­gun fundrais­ing off it for his 2024 pres­i­den­tial cam­paign.

MI­A­MI (AP) —