A lawyer representing former President Donald Trump said it's not a crime for a former chief executive to possess "even the most sensitive documents."
Trump said Thursday that the Department of Justice informed his legal team that a federal grand jury in Miami, Florida, had indicted him.
The New York Times reported that President Joe Biden's Department of Justice (DOJ) is accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents he kept upon leaving office and then obstructing the government's efforts to reclaim them.
During an appearance on Friday's "Today" show on NBC, attorney Jim Trusty said Trump is being charged with "something that was never criminal for any other president in history" and "has suddenly been weaponized by this Department of Justice."
"There's no criminal statute within the Presidential Records Act [PRA] that says it's a violation to possess any of these things, even the most sensitive documents," said Trusty, who added that the PRA doesn't anticipate anything criminal.
The PRA, enacted in 1978, requires that official White House records be preserved.
Trusty said that if a former president and the National Archives and Records Administration disagree on whether a document is presidential or personal, the PRA says a civil suit, not criminal, could be brought.
Trusty said the Trump legal team "fairly recently" learned that a Florida grand jury had been hearing from witnesses. Previously, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., was believed to be involved in the case.
The creation of the Florida grand jury "could be a reflection of an acknowledgment by DOJ they had some venue problems, that they really never should have been venued it in D.C.," Trusty said, or that they want to "sanitize" and "kind of repackage, re-remarket it for consumption down in South Florida."
Trusty told "Today" that Trump's legal team believes the indictment from the Florida grand jury is the only one in the classified documents case. He added that Trump's legal team doesn't anticipate an indictment from the D.C. grand jury.
Trusty said Trump will appear in court Tuesday.
"It's a difficult conversation when you're talking to a client who's actually factually innocent of these charges," Trusty told "Today." "He was upset for the country, but in terms of him, he's a fighter, and he's going to come out swinging, and he'll be fine."
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