Read the indictment below.
Former president Donald Trump faces a seven-count indictment in connection with keeping hundreds of classified documents in his possession after leaving the White House. The indictment was unsealed Friday afternoon.
The 49-page indictment says that when he was president, he kept boxes containing papers about “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.”
When he left the White House in early 2021, Trump “caused scores of boxes, many of which contained classified documents to be transported to be transported to The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he maintained his residence,” the indictment said, nothing that he was “not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents.”
Even though the club was not a secure facility for storing sensitive government secrets, Trump “stored his boxes containing classified documents in various locations at The Mar-a-Lago Club – including in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” the indictment charges.
The federal case against Trump for alleged obstruction and mishandling of classified documents is expected to be overseen at least initially by Judge Aileen M. Cannon – the federal judge in Florida who last year appointed a special master in the case and temporarily halted FBI access to classified documents taken in a court-approved search. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
President Biden declined to comment Friday about President Trump’s indictment, his first public remark since Trump announced he was indicted on Thursday night.
“I have no comment,” Biden told reporters after touring Nash Community College.
The White House and Biden’s campaign also declined to comment.
The evidence leading to the indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami includes an audio recording from 2021 in which he talks about an apparently secret document and says, “As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can’t,” a person familiar with a transcript of the remarks said Friday.
Two of Trump’s top lawyers said Friday that they were quitting his legal team, moments after the newly indicted former president said he would be bringing on new lawyers. In a joint statement, Jim Trusty and John Rowley said they had “tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation.”
Federal authorities have charged a longtime aide to Trump whose responsibilities included moving and carrying cardboard boxes in which the former president kept mementos and papers, Trump announced on social media Friday.
Prosecutors have viewed Walt Nauta, a military valet in the Trump White House and now a personal aide to the former president, – as a critical witness in the investigation into possible mishandling of classified government materials at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida residence and private club.
Republicans were quick to criticize what they called the weaponization of the Justice Department, ahead of Tuesday’s expected arraignment, but few defended Trump himself.
“I have just learned that the “Thugs” from the Department of Injustice will be Indicting a wonderful man, Walt Nauta, a member of the U.S. Navy, who served proudly with me in the White House, retired as Senior Chief, and then transitioned into private life as a personal aide,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Trump advisers also said Nauta had been charged. A lawyer for Nauta declined to comment.
When first questioned by FBI agents in the spring of 2022, Nauta denied any knowledge that sensitive documents were being stored at Trump’s club, The Washington Post has reported.
But when questioned a second time, he told investigators that he had moved boxes at Trump’s direction after prosecutors sent a subpoena seeking the return of all documents marked classified and kept at Mar-a-Lago.
Multiple people who viewed the summons ordering Trump to appear in federal court next week confirmed that the case has been assigned to Cannon, a young conservative judge who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020.
After the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club in Florida, Cannon ruled in Trump’s favor last year when his legal team argued that he retained his executive privileges after leaving office and therefore had the right to shield at least some of the documents from review.
A conservative-leaning appeals court later struck down her controversial decision. But her ruling temporarily blocked the Justice Department from reviewing the seized materials, slowing down the investigation.
The court-issued summons given to Trump’s lawyers included the names of both Cannon and Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart, according to the people familiar with the document. Reinhart is the judge who signed off on the government’s request for a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago.
Trump could make his initial appearance in front of Reinhart on Tuesday in the federal courthouse in Miami, but it is possible that Cannon ends up presiding over that appearance instead.
The evidence leading to the indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami includes an audio recording from 2021 in which he talks about an apparently secret document and says, “As president, I could have declassified it, but now I can’t,” a person familiar with a transcript of the remarks said Friday.
It’s the second time Trump has been indicted. He was indicted in New York in March on allegations of falsifying business documents related to hush money payments and has pleaded not guilty. He is also under investigation for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Kelsey Ables, Adela Suliman, John Wagner, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
