The 2024 presidential campaign is unlike any in U.S. history. Donald Trump, the Republican Party's leading early candidate for nomination, is accused of 37 felonies in a federal grand jury indictment. Charges against the former president include 31 counts of intentionally keeping national defense documents after leaving office – a violation of the Espionage Act – as well as conspiracy to obstruct justice, hiding records and documents from the FBI, concealing documents in an investigation and making false statements. Twenty-one of the documents were marked top secret. It's the first time an ex-president is charged with breaking federal laws that he swore to uphold.

Trump, who calls the indictment "baseless" and "election interference," was booked last week in a Miami courthouse and entered a not guilty plea – "a scene as surreal as it was momentous," The New York Times reported. Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by the attorney general seven months ago, attended the hearing but didn't speak. A federal magistrate judge didn't set a date when Trump must return to court. Shortly before his court appearance, the defendant called Smith a "thug" and a "lunatic" on social media.

Some documents kept haphazardly at Mar-a-Lago, his country club residence in Doral, Fla., had "information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries, United States nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack," says the 49-page indictment (pronounced IN-dite-ment) delivered by 23 randomly picked South Floridians. (Trump isn't charged for illegally keeping any of the 197 documents he returned.) "This indictment confronts the country with the harrowing prospect of a former president facing years behind bars, even as he runs to regain the White House," a Times editorial says.

It's unclear why he kept classified documents after leaving the White House near the start of 2021 and why he allegedly hid them when the National Archives came calling. Trump defenders claim it's a political persecution. "It is unconscionable for a president to indict the leading candidate opposing him," tweets House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., though Joe Biden had no role in the matter. Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a rival for next year's Republican nomination, says: "The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society." But another presidential hopeful, Nikki Haley, says it looks like "President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security." Past federal prosecutors Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, also seeking nomination next year, speak out against their fellow Republican. "Trump . . . is confronting the remarkable prospect of sitting at a defendant's table for federal and state trials that may overlap with the [2024] presidential primaries or nominating conventions," notes The Washington Post.

Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson writes in a blog post: "The indictment came . . . from a federal grand jury of ordinary American citizens in Florida who reviewed evidence and determined that there was probable cause to believe that Trump committed crimes and should be tried for them. Trump's defenders are trying to blur this reality by saying it was Biden who charged Trump." Still, journalist Steve Clemons of Semafor news site observes: "Nobody has a history of turning bad news into good with voters like him. Another term in the White House is still as live a possibility as ever. The indictment matters, but it's not clear as of this moment which way history will turn."

Trump says: "The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration's weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country." – At campaign rally June 10 in Georgia.

Lead prosecutor says: "We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone." – Jack Smith, U.S. Justice Department special prosecutor

President says: "I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do, relative to bringing a charge or not bringing a charge." – Joe Biden