Trump indictment watch continues as his lawyers meet prosecutors

The grand jury conducting special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Donald Trump’s bid to interfere with the 2020 presidential election met again Thursday amid signs of a looming indictment, but by late afternoon it was uncertain what action prosecutors planned.

Just before 3 p.m., a deputy clerk at the federal courthouse near the Capitol where the grand jury meets told journalists stationed there that no indictments had been returned Thursday and none were expected by the end of the day.

Trump, who said earlier this month that his lawyers had received a target letter signaling he was likely to be indicted by Smith in the election-interference probe, struck an unusually upbeat tone about a meeting his attorneys held Thursday morning with the special counsel’s team. Last month, lawyers for Trump had a similar meeting with Smith’s team just days before Smith obtained an indictment of Trump in Florida for hoarding classified documents after his presidency.

“My 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,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Trump Social. “No indication of notice was given during the meeting — Do not trust the Fake News on anything!”

Trump’s comment hinted at a defense he seems likely to rely on should he face charges: That his efforts to overturn the 2020 election were based on the recommendations of attorneys and should be seen as an attempt to work through the legal system, not subvert it.

As Trump’s legal challenges to the election results faltered in the weeks following the election, he relied on lawyers with increasingly fringe strategies to keep him in power. Most notably, attorney John Eastman helped Trump develop a plan to pressure then-vice president Mike Pence to single-handedly attempt to block Joe Biden’s election. Pence ultimately refused to participate in the effort.

Anticipation was palpable at the courthouse Thursday, where throngs of journalists crowded hallways and looked for signs of movement in the vicinity of the courthouse’s sealed grand jury spaces. Trump’s announcement that his lawyers had met with Smith’s team earlier in the day further fueled speculation that an indictment was imminent.

The media encampment outside the D.C. courthouse continued to grow through the day Thursday, despite the sweltering heat.

Meanwhile, in Fulton County, Georgia, images of newly installed security barricades around the courthouse there — where Trump may face similar charges related to his role in seeking to subvert Biden’s win in Georgia — also contributed to the sense that Trump’s already serious legal troubles are about to become even graver.

Trump, whom opinion polls show to be the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, already faces two criminal cases. One, filed in New York in March, charges him with violating state law by falsifying business records related to alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election. The other, brought by Smith last month in Florida, accuses him of willfully retaining national security secrets in documents at his Palm Beach estate and of attempting to obstruct justice in that investigation.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in both cases and claims he is the victim of political vendettas.