Donald Trump's Lawyer Says He'll 'Come Out Swinging' as His Handling of Classified Docs Takes Center Stage

An attorney for Donald Trump said the former president plans on taking on Thursday’s unprecedented federal criminal charges head-on.

“He’s a fighter and he’s going to come out swinging,” attorney James Trusty insisted on theToday show Friday morning. “He’ll be fine.”

On Thursday, Trump was indicted in special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents probe. 

The federal indictment contains at least seven counts, including willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice, according to The New York Times.

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Trump is set to be arraigned in federal court in Miami on Tuesday and will be there in person, Trusty said on Today, because the Celebrity Apprentice host “isn’t afraid” of the “ridiculous criminalization of a non-criminal dispute.”

“He’s a resilient guy,” Trusty told Craig Melvin, when asked on the NBC morning show how Trump responded to the charges. “He’s a pretty tough guy."

It's unclear how Trump will pled though there's a good bet it'll be not guilty, with Trusty saying that his client is "factually innocent of these charges."

The one-term president took to his social media site on Thursday to announce the indictment, lobbing accusations at the Biden administration.

"The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoard, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware," Trump wrote on Truth Social, chalking the criminal charges up to a sabotage attempt by President Biden, who has kept a distance from the Department of Justice's investigations into Trump for that very reason.

As of Friday, the DOJ has not yet weighed in on the reported charges.

Outlets including The Independent report that Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, provided evidence to the grand jury and will plead guilty to federal charges as part of a limited-immunity deal in exchange for his testimony — though Meadows' lawyer denied to The Independent that his client had agreed to any guilty pleas.

News of the indictment comes after prosecutors investigating the case reportedly accessed a July 2021 recording of the former president acknowledging that he retained a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran.

In early June 2023, CNN reported that the recording, which was made roughly six months after Trump left the White House, captures the former president suggesting he would like to share the information found in the classified documents but is aware that his ability to declassify records after leaving the White House is limited.

While it's unclear what sort of evidence Meadows would have provided to the grand jury, it's worth noting that he wrote about the existence of a "four-page report" that contained information about "a plan to attack Iran" in his own autobiography.

Trump was previously indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in March 2023 for allegedly paying hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels while he was a presidential candidate in 2016.

With that initial indictment, Trump became the first sitting or former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges.

In May, Trump was also found liable for sexually abusing and defaming former Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll following a highly publicized civil trial in Manhattan.

The latest charges against Trump, which could provoke turmoil in the U.S. given his status as a 2024 presidential candidate, come 10 months after news of alleged mishandling of sensitive White House records first broke in 2022.