WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Lawyers for\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0met Thursday with members of\u00a0special counsel Jack Smith\u2019s team\u00a0ahead of a potential indictment over the former president\u2019s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, according to a person familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump himself confirmed the meeting in a post on his Truth Social network, writing, \u201cMy attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that \u201cno indication of notice was given during the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was not immediately clear what was discussed at the meeting, though a similar sit-down with lawyers occurred in the days before Trump was indicted last month on charges of illegally retaining classified documents. Thursday\u2019s meeting included Trump attorney John Lauro, said the person familiar with the case, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering. Lauro said in a television interview last week that his client had done \u201cnothing wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The status of the secretive grand jury proceedings remained unclear Thursday despite building speculation that a criminal case could be near. By late in the afternoon, no indictment had been announced, and it was not clear if one would be by the end of the day. In a sign of heightened expectations, police officers were photographed gathered outside the courthouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump,\u00a0the front-runner\u00a0in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, was informed earlier this month by Smith\u2019s office that he was\u00a0a target of the Justice Department\u2019s investigation, suggesting that an indictment could be soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The investigation has focused on the turbulent two-month period after\u00a0the November 2020 election\u00a0in which Trump refused to accept his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and\u00a0spread lies\u00a0that victory was stolen from him. The turmoil resulted in the\u00a0Jan. 6, 2021, riot\u00a0at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump loyalists\u00a0violently broke into the building, attacked police officers and disrupted the congressional counting of electoral votes. More than 1,000 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In between the election and the riot, Trump\u00a0urged local election officials to undo voting results\u00a0in their states, pressured Vice President Mike Pence to halt the certification of electoral votes and falsely claimed that the election had been stolen \u2014 despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staffers and even\u00a0his own attorney general\u00a0have all said there is\u00a0no evidence of the fraud he alleges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesman for Smith declined to comment on Thursday\u2019s meeting. Lauro, Trump\u2019s lawyer, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump was charged by Smith\u2019s team last month with illegally\u00a0hoarding classified documents\u00a0at his Palm Beach, Florida, estate, Mar-a-Lago, and concealing them from investigators. He was also indicted in New York in March on charges of falsifying business records in connection with an alleged\u00a0hush money payment\u00a0to a porn actor. And prosecutors in Fulton County, Georgia, are preparing to announce charging decisions in the coming weeks related to\u00a0efforts to subvert the election\u00a0in that state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Lawyers for\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0met Thursday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2679,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2677\/revisions\/2679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}