The attorney general will not play any role in the unsealing of the indictment against Trump, NBC News has confirmed.

Garland will not need to sign off on making that happen. 

Republicans have denounced the Justice Department over the indictment and former Vice President Mike Pence called on Garland to unseal the charges by the end of the day today.

Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley tweeted that "this is not how justice should be pursued in our country," though she did not mention Trump by name.

“The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards, and vendetta politics,” she wrote. “It’s time to move beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

Haley, a former South Carolina governor, served as Trump's ambassador to the United Nations and is now running against him for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

In a shake-up of his legal team, Trump announced on Truth Social that he will now be represented by Todd Blanche in the case "and a firm to be named later."

"For purposes of fighting the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time, now moving to the Florida Courts, I will be represented by Todd Blanche, Esq., and a firm to be named later," he wrote.

Blanche is representing Trump in the New York criminal case in which the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in April.

Trump thanked two of his attorneys — Jim Trusty and John Rowley — for their work. "They were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and 'sick' group of people, the likes of which has not been seen before. We will be announcing additional lawyers in the coming days."

Trusty and Rowley released a joint statement saying that they had resigned. Trusty had spoken to a number of morning news shows today about the case.

"We will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation," the two lawyers said, adding that they think Trump "will be vindicated in his battle against the Biden Administration’s partisan weaponization of the American justice system."

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., broke his silence on Trump's federal indictment this morning, writing on Twitter that as the case unfolds, "Special Counsel Smith must be allowed to continue his investigation without interference," as Republican lawmakers continue to say they will hold the Justice Department "accountable."

Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, also serves as the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has been assigned to initially oversee the case involving the Justice Department's indictment of Trump, two sources familiar with the situation told NBC News.

The development was first reported by ABC News this morning.

Cannon, a Trump appointee, was the federal judge who appointed a special master last year to review the documents seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago last August.

Echoing Trump's condemnation of his criminal indictment, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took to his podcast to criticize the charges.

“This indictment is garbage," Cruz said. "This is a political attack. It is a political attack from a thoroughly corrupted and weaponized Department of Justice. And it’s a sad day for America.”

The indictment remains under seal, which means Cruz hasn't been able to read the content of it, and so far, all that is public is what Trump's lawyers have said, including which charges are being brought.

And unlike the case in New York, where key witnesses were giving public statements and Michael Cohen had detailed his role in open court as part of a guilty plea, many of the facts surrounding the classified documents may still be unknown — or never known. For example, given the classified nature of the documents, the public may never know their contents.

A small group of pro-Trump demonstrators are gathered outside former Vice President Mike Pence’s New Hampshire kickoff event in Derry right now.

When asked by NBC News if their demonstration was more pro-Trump or anti-Pence, one demonstrator said: “It’s both. Benedict Pence is a traitor.”

When Trump announced to the world last night that he had been indicted on a raft of federal charges, his message was consistent and singularly focused: Joe Biden is using the government to crush his political comeback. 

That the attorney general appointed by Biden had named a special counsel to helm the investigation — a move intended to insulate the president from a decision to prosecute — was omitted by Trump and the battery of Republican allies who quickly rushed to his defense. And it’s likely to be a nuance lost on voters, as the indictment stokes Republican fears about political bias inside the Justice Department.  

But so far, Biden has shown no sign of changing strategy when it comes to his chief political rival’s legal woes: Stay silent and keep going about White House business.

Read the full story here.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, a frequent critic of Trump, appeared to release the first statement from a congressional Republican that wasn't highly critical of the Justice Department.

"By all appearances, the Justice Department and special counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others," he said in a statement.

Romney continued, "Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so."

Romney was the lone Senate Republican to join Democrats and vote to convict Trump after his first impeachment in 2020 and also voted to convict Trump in 2021 after he was impeached over his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.