Federal indictment against former President Trump unsealed
Donald Trump unlawfully kept hundreds of classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after leaving the presidency — including papers detailing America’s conventional and nuclear weapons programs, potential weak points in US defenses, and plans to respond to a foreign attack, federal prosecutors charged Friday.
The 45th president stored boxes containing the documents throughout the Palm Beach property, including “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” according to a 49-page indictment filed in Miami federal court Thursday.
Trump also wasn’t shy about showing off the material, according to prosecutors, who cited a recorded July 2021 meeting at which the ex-president reportedly displayed a “plan of attack” against Iran prepared by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The 37-count indictment against Trump was unsealed hours after the 76-year-old announced he had been charged by Jack Smith, the special counsel tapped in November to examine Trump’s retention of official documents.
The first-ever federal case filed against a sitting or former president includes 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, one count of withholding a document or record, one count of corruptly concealing a document or record, one count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, one count of scheming to conceal a document or record and one count of making false statements.
A personal aide to Trump, Walt Nauta, was hit with one count each of conspiracy, withholding, corruptly concealing, concealing, scheming to conceal and making false statements to federal investigators.
PACKING UP
According to the indictment, Trump and Nauta worked together as the president left the White House in January 2021 to load hundreds of classified documents in boxes for the move to Mar-a-Lago. The charging document notes that Trump was “personally involved in this process,” but does not go into specifics.
The classified documents came from the US intelligence community and executive branch agencies, including the CIA, Pentagon, National Security Agency, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Energy and the State Department.
MAR-A-LAGO MESS
Many of the boxes were kept in the resort’s White and Gold ballroom at first, but were moved in March 2021 to the business center.
In April and May 2021, the boxes were transferred to a bathroom and shower in Mar-a-Lago’s Lake Room.
That June, they were moved to a basement storage room with outside entrances, including one to the outside pool patio “that was often kept open,” according to prosecutors.
Nauta on Dec. 7, 2021, found several of the room’s more than 80 boxes had fallen — one of which was marked “secret” and showed information that could only be disseminated to members of the so-called “Five Eyes intelligence alliance,” referring to officials from the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
“I opened the door and found this,” Nauta texted another Trump employee at the resort about the document spill. That employee responded, “Oh no oh no.”
‘THIS IS SECRET INFORMATION’
Trump also authorized an undisclosed number of other boxes in May 2021 to be taken to his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he was recorded two months later discussing one of the classified documents with a writer, a publisher, and two aides.
In the meeting, the former president referred to a senior military official, reported to be Milley, who worried Trump might order a military strike on another country, reportedly Iran, after his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
“He said that I wanted to attack [Country A],” Trump said in a transcript of the exchange included in his indictment, while disputing that he authored the plans. “This was him. This was the Defense Department and him.”
“I just found, isn’t that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know,” Trump went on in the transcript. “Except it is like, highly confidential. … Secret. This is secret information.”
“This was done by the military and given to me. Uh, I think we can probably, right,” he added.
“I don’t know, we’ll, we’ll have to see. Yeah, we’ll have to try to—” an aide responded.
“Declassify it,” Trump said. “See as president I could have declassified it. … Now, I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”
Neither the writer, the publisher, nor Trump’s aides had security clearances at the time, prosecutors say.
In August or September 2021, Trump showed a member of his political action committee, who also did not have a security clearance, a classified map of another country — and immediately admitted to the person that he shouldn’t have done so.
‘WE DON’T HAVE ANYTHING’
The National Archives and Records Administration had begun to request missing presidential records that spring, saying the matter would be referred to the Justice Department if Trump did not comply.
But the former president didn’t begin to go through the boxes until November, when Nauta brought them to his residence for review.
Nauta eventually handed over 15 boxes containing 197 classified documents to the Archives on Jan. 17, 2022, of which 98 were “secret,” 30 were “top secret” and the rest were marked “confidential.”
The FBI opened a criminal investigation into the ex-commander in chief’s retention of the classified documents on March 30, 2022, and a grand jury was empaneled on April 26, 2022.
Prosecutors said Nauta in May 2022 made false and misleading statements to the FBI about the transfer of the documents, claiming he was unaware the boxes were brought to Trump’s private residence and he didn’t know how they had gotten there or where they were stored before.
On May 23, 2022, Trump met with his attorneys to discuss how to respond to a May 11 subpoena from the grand jury.
“I don’t want anybody looking, I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes, I really don’t, I don’t want you looking through my boxes,” one of the attorneys summarized the former president’s comments.
Here's what to know about former President Donald Trump's federal indictment
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges related to mishandling classified White House documents that were recovered at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump unlawfully kept hundreds of documents after leaving office — including papers detailing America’s conventional and nuclear weapons programs, potential weak points in US defenses, and plans to respond to a foreign attack, federal prosecutors charged Friday.
The 45th president stored boxes containing the documents throughout his estate, including “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” according to a 49-page indictment filed in Miami federal court Thursday.
Follow The Post’s coverage of former President Trump’s federal indictment
The indictment against Trump was unsealed hours after the 77-year-old announced he had been charged by Jack Smith, the special counsel tapped in November to examine Trump’s retention of official documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The indictment is the former commander-in-chief’s second since leaving office and marks the first time in US history a former president has faced federal charges.
In April, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg related to hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.
Trump also suggested he might not “play ball” with the grand jury’s request and said it would “be better if we just told them we don’t have anything” or “if there are no documents,” the attorney recalled.
At the same meeting, the attorney also recounted that Trump praised Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, who he said had “deleted all of her emails, the 30,000 emails,” adding that “he didn’t get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them.”
OBSTRUCTION
At some point after the May 23 meeting, prosecutors say, Trump directed Nauta to move 64 boxes from the storage room to his private residence. On June 1, one of Trump’s attorneys reminded him that they were coming the next day to review the boxes and ensure that the former president had complied with the May 11 subpoena.
The next day, before the attorney arrived, Trump called Nauta. About three hours later, the aide and another Mar-a-Lago employee moved about 30 boxes from Trump’s residence back to the storage room. Prosecutors said the FBI later observed the box movement on surveillance footage.
That afternoon, when Trump’s attorney arrived to go through the material. Nauta led them only to the storage room to retrieve the classified documents, not the residence.
On June 3, Trump’s legal team certified to the Department of Justice and FBI that a “diligent search” had been conducted and turned over another 38 classified documents, with the former president telling officials he was “an open book,” according to prosecutors.
The same day, Nauta had moved boxes to Trump Force One for a flight north, which was also caught on surveillance cameras.
The FBI returned on Aug. 8, 2022 to execute a search warrant, seizing 102 more classified documents from Mar-a-Lago.
Trump faces a maximum sentence of 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts. Nauta faces a maximum of 90 years imprisonment upon conviction.
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