Donald Trump: Former president to make first speech since federal charges announced

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Former U.S. President Donald TrumpImage source, Reuters

Former US President Donald Trump will today make his first public appearance since being indicted on federal charges for his handling of classified documents.

He will speak at a Republican Party convention in Georgia on Saturday afternoon local time, then later in North Carolina.

A 37-count indictment made public on Friday accuses him of keeping sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago property.

Mr Trump denies any wrongdoing.

He has been charged with mishandling hundreds of classified documents, including some about US nuclear secrets and military plans.

The indictment accused him of keeping the files at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, in a ballroom and a shower.

It alleges that he lied to investigators and tried to obstruct the investigation into his handling of the documents.

They are the first-ever federal charges against a former US president.

Mr Trump, who is running for the White House again in 2024, has reacted angrily to the indictment, calling it a politically-motivated "scam".

He has also claimed he "had nothing to hide" and supplied the documents "openly".

In a series of posts, as well as a video on his social media platform Truth Social, Mr Trump repeatedly said he was innocent and described the indictment as "political warfare" against him before the 2024 election.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who oversaw the investigation, said: "We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone."

As momentum starts to build towards the 2024 election, Mr Trump will first speak at a Republican Party convention in Columbus, Georgia at around 14:30 local time (18:30 GMT), before moving onto another Republican Party event in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he is scheduled to speak at 18:00 EDT (22:00 GMT).

Mr Trump is currently the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination.

His former vice president Mike Pence - who this week was highly critical of his former boss when announcing his own run for the presidency - spoke earlier at the North Carolina event, although the pair are not expected to cross paths.

Georgia is likely to be a key battleground in the race for the White House, and is where Mr Trump narrowly lost to current President Joe Biden in 2020 - it could also be the scene of further legal jeopardy for the former president.

Officials in the state are currently looking into whether Mr Trump broke the law when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the exact number of votes he needed to flip the vote in his favour.

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