Takeaways from Donald Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case

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CNN —

Special counsel Jack Smith returned a historic indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed Friday, the first time a former president has been charged with crimes in federal court.

Trump faces a total of 37 counts, including 31 counts of knowingly withholding national defense information. His aide, Walt Nauta, faces six counts, including several obstruction and concealment-related charges stemming from the alleged conduct.

We have a set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone who applies those laws, gathers facts, that determines the outcome of an investigation, Smith said in a brief appearance on Washington, DC, on Friday. Nothing more and nothing less.

The 49-page indictment includes new details about how Trump allegedly brought classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office in 2021 and resisted government attempts to retrieve them. classified materials. In his statement, Smith encouraged the public to read it in its entirety to understand the scope and gravity of the crimes charged.

Here are the main takeaways from the indictment:

Trump and Nauta face nearly half a dozen charges related to the interception and withholding of documents from Justice Department investigations, which will help prosecutors make the argument that the alleged behavior of Trump has largely gone beyond the classified document snafus involving President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence.

The indictment details how Nauta allegedly moved boxes from a storage room where a Trump lawyer was scheduled to search for classified materials in response to a May 2022 subpoena, and how the aide only moved some in those boxes before finding lawyers. . Prosecutors, pointing to phone calls and other evidence, allege Nauta moved these boxes at Trump’s direction.

To bolster the narrative that Trump knew he was hiding materials sought in a grand jury subpoena, the indictment points to a conversation Trump had with his lawyers about how to respond to the subpoena, in which he allegedly suggested Trump that his team cannot do. turn over the classified documents requested by the subpoena.

Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we’re not here? Trump allegedly said.

After his lawyer collected the 38 records to hand over to the DOJ, the lawyer talked Trump into storing them in his hotel room. Trump, while walking back and forth, made a plucking motion, the indictment said, which the lawyer took to mean: why don’t you take them to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know mo, pluck it out.

Trump has been accused of showing classified documents on two occasions to others.

The episodes described in the indictment suggest Trump knew the information was classified and highly sensitive and could help prosecutors explain to a jury why Trump’s alleged willful retention of national defense information was a serious crime.

One of the times Trump allegedly showed others the classified records he took from the White House was a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, when Trump presented and described an attack plan that Trump said prepared by the Department of Defense, a CNN meeting first. what was reported was captured in an audio recording.

Trump also said as president I could declassify it, and Now I can’t, you know, but it’s still secret, according to the indictment.

According to prosecutors, in August or September 2021, Trump also showed a document in Bedminster to a representative of his political action committee: a classified map related to a military operation and told the representative that he should not have it show the representative and that the representative should not be too close.

The indictment alleges that Trump has kept documents related to national defense classified at the highest level and some are so sensitive that they require special handling.

That included a Top Secret document, dated June 2020, about a foreign county’s nuclear capabilities that was found at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the indictment.

This document is not only classified as Top Secret but comes with additional ORCON and NOFORN restrictions.

Documents designated as ORCON may not be circulated outside the issuing department without approval. Those labeled NOFORN cannot be shared with foreigners.

For prosecution, the Department of Justice set aside 31 documents specifically for each of the 31 voluntary retention counts. Some of the records deal with the military capabilities of various countries, with one of the records marked as NOFORN also including a handwritten annotation in a black marker.

The materials include White House intelligence briefings related to various foreign countries. One note relates to the timeline and details of an attack on a foreign country, while another December 2019 document concerns foreign country support for terrorist actions against United States interests.

National security law experts previously told CNN that when prosecutors investigate a classified materials case, they look for so-called Goldilocks documents that are sensitive enough to reflect the seriousness of the crime but not too sensitive that they cannot be used in a trial.

In addition to the timeline in the sometimes minute-by-minute charging papers explaining how boxes of classified information moved around Trumps Florida resort after Trump allegedly brought them there from the White House, the indictment included six photos that allowed prosecutors to clearly make their case that classified documents had been moved throughout Mar-a-Lago.

The photos show boxes in a ballroom, a basement storage room and even a bathroom and shower inside the Mar-a-Lago club’s Lake Room, according to the indictment.

In one photo, there are boxes of spilled documents on the floor. The indictment states that Nauta found the contents of several boxes dumped on the floor of the storage room in December 2021, along with a Five Eyes classified document, which means intelligence was shared only with five countries: the US, the United Kingdom, Canada , Australia and New Zealand.

Nauta allegedly texted two photos of the spill to another Trump employee, according to prosecutors. The indictment includes that photo that illustrates how classified documents kept by Trump were mixed with newspapers and photographs.

Among the 31 documents that the indictment describes as the basis of 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, the indictment also lists when the government recovered those documents. Twenty-one were obtained on August 8, 2022, the date of the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago and 10 were obtained on June 3, 2022, when Trump’s lawyer Evan Corcoran turned over the classified documents as response to Justice Department subpoena in May 2022. .

The indictment does not, however, list charges that any of the classified documents were returned in January 2022, when Trump turned over the 15 boxes to the National Archives. The Archives found nearly 200 classified documents in those boxes, according to the indictment, including 30 marked top secret.

Notably, the indictment does not include any documents obtained in January 2022, as Trump and his allies in Congress have attacked the Justice Department for not charging Biden or others with unauthorized classifieds. document in their possession.

The difference, of course, is that Biden and former Pence immediately contacted the National Archives and offered to return the documents, while prosecutors say Trump blocked efforts to retrieve the classified documents in Mar-a-Lago.

A separate special counsel investigation into the handling of Bidens documents remains ongoing, while the Justice Department told Pences attorney that no charges will be brought over the discovery of classified documents at his Indiana home.

Trump has been summoned to appear in court in southern Florida at 3 pm ET Tuesday, where he will appear before a magistrate judge to hear the charges against him and is expected to enter a not guilty plea.

On Friday, Smith pledged that his office would seek a speedy trial in the matter consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused.

How quickly the case will go to trial is still an open question, as the discovery process for this case could be lengthy. This will be further complicated by the fact that this prosecution involves classified materials.

The Justice Department believes it will take prosecutors 21 business days about a month in court to present their case to a jury at trial, according to a court document prosecutors filed with the indictment. The estimate does not include how long the defense might take to present its case, which includes the possibility that Trump chooses to testify in his own defense.

The case has been assigned to federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, a judge appointed by Trump who raised eyebrows last year when she oversaw court proceedings related to Trump’s efforts to appoint a so-called special master to review documents seized in the FBI’s August search of Mar-a-Lago. His move to order a third-party review of the search was overturned by a conservative federal appeals court.

Trump already has a trial scheduled for March 2024 in his criminal case in New York, and additional investigations into the former president including those from the Fulton County district attorney and special counsel are set to separate in January. 6 investigations are still pending.

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