FirstFT: Trump says he has been indicted on criminal charges over handling of documents

Donald Trump said yesterday evening that he had been indicted on federal charges in connection with classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

“This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social social media platform.

A lawyer for Trump, Jim Trusty, told CNN yesterday that a legal summons from the Department of Justice indicated there were seven charges, including obstruction of justice, false statements and violations of the Espionage Act, which he called “ludicrous”.

He said he had not yet seen the indictment but that the summons asked Trump to be at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday.

Since leaving office in January 2021, Trump has faced an unprecedented series of investigations and legal actions. He has already become the first former president to be charged in a criminal case in state court, after the Manhattan district attorney hit him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty.

The Department of Justice declined to comment.

• Analysis: A defiant Trump faces a much bigger political test in an unprecedented second indictment, this time with national security implications.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Russia has its consumer price index and Canada releases its unemployment rate, both for last month.

• Manchester United: Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani has made a final offer for the Premier League club and threatened to walk away from the bidding war after today.

• London Fashion Week: The event starts today and ends on Monday.

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Five more top stories

1. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority has widened a probe into Odey Asset Management after the Financial Times yesterday reported sexual assault and harassment allegations from 13 women against the hedge fund’s founder, Crispin Odey. Read the full story.

2. Germany’s finance minister has warned of a stalemate among EU states over the bloc’s fiscal rules, denting hopes of a deal by the end of the year. Countries such as France and Italy are demanding a more flexible regime, but Christian Lindner’s remarks to the FT suggest he is not backing down from demands on steeper cuts to public debt.

3. Exclusive: Mervyn Davies received $40mn as LetterOne’s non-executive chair as its Russian founders had to exit due to sanctions, according to documents seen by the FT. The payouts, which covered the former UK trade minister’s work for 2021 and 2022, were a sharp increase from those received in years before the war in Ukraine.

4. Exclusive: Norway is readying plans to open an ocean area to deep-sea mining as it seeks to become the first country to extract battery metals from its sea floor, but it faces a battle with fishing businesses, environmentalists and possibly other nations. Read more on Oslo’s ambitions for the vast area nearly the size of Germany.

5. Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak agreed an “Atlantic declaration” to strengthen trade yesterday in areas such as defence, nuclear materials and critical minerals used in electric-car batteries, with the US president also endorsing the UK prime minister’s attempt to lead the global debate on regulating artificial intelligence. Here’s how the deal is meant to cut China out of supply chains.

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News in-depth

Residents in the flooded Ukrainian towns and villages under Russian control have blamed the Moscow-installed authorities for blocking evacuation efforts and abandoning them when they most needed help, while in contrast, a flurry of rescue efforts took place on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the Dnipro river yesterday.

We’re also reading and watching . . . 

Graphic of the day

Central to the lawsuit filed this week by the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Binance are allegations involving Merit Peak and Sigma Chain, two secretive companies directly or indirectly owned by the crypto exchange’s chief executive Changpeng Zhao.

Take a break from the news

If you’re after trinkets with little monetary or practical value but oodles of charm, then Tombées du Camion in Paris’s Marché aux Puces de Saint-Ouen is a must-visit. Meaning “fallen off the lorry” (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the means by which some dealers acquire their goods), the Surrealist shop is a hoarder’s delight with a seemingly infinite inventory of unusual objets.

Additional contributions by Benjamin Wilhelm and Gordon Smith