"Perhaps even today": Experts say "an indictment is incoming" after Trump lawyers meet Smith's team

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump met on Thursday with prosecutors at special counsel Jack Smith's office and were told to expect an indictment in connection with the Justice Department investigation into the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to NBC News.

Trump attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche sought the meeting with Smith's team after the former president received a letter informing him that he is a target in the investigation.

Trump had reportedly argued against the meeting between his legal team and federal prosecutors because he believed the indictment was already set in stone, two sources familiar with his thinking told CNN. 

Legal experts said the meeting suggests an indictment will come down imminently. 

"An indictment is incoming," tweeted former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who was a member of special counsel Bob Mueller's team, noting that similar meetings preceded Trump's indictments in Manhattan and Florida.

"The meeting is a signal that indictment is near," tweeted CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, noting that there was a three-day lapse between Trump's lawyers meeting with Smith's team in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and the filing of charges.

"An indictment will follow in short order, perhaps even today," predicted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman.

The target letter, which was sent on July 16, includes three federal statutes: deprivation of rights under a civil rights statute, conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States, and tampering with a witness, victim or an informant, sources with knowledge of the matter told ABC News. 

Trump confirmed he received the letter in a post to Truth Social last week. He denies all wrongdoing in the case and has dismissed it, along with his indictment in the special counsel's other probe into his handling of classified documents post-presidency, as a political "witch hunt."

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wrote that the meeting suggests an indictment "won't be returned today."

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"Smith wouldn't agree to meet to discuss a potential indictment while secretly indicting that day. But perhaps Trump's team didn't reach out until too late.  We don't know," he tweeted.

"If the indictment becomes public on the same day as the meeting with Trump's team, that means that the meeting was more about logistics and other loose ends rather than about the decision to indict," he added.

"Trump's attorneys met with DOJ about the MAL docs on Monday, June 5th. He was indicted on Thursday, June 8th. While we could still see an indictment this afternoon, don't be surprised if it pushes until next week," agreed former FBI senior agent Peter Strzok, adding that it would come on the same week that Fulton County, Ga. District Attorney Fani Willis told her staff to work remotely ahead of a likely indictment in her probe of Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.