ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT
By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) - A indictment against former President Donald Trump was unsealed in court Friday in what marks a historic first for an ex-commander-in-chief as Trump faces federal charges.
Trump faces 37 charges, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, most of which are tied to documents that were seized when the FBI executed a search warrant at the ex-president's Mar-a-Lago estate on Aug. 8. Eleven of the charges relate to documents that were handed over to FBI investigators by Trump's attorney in June.
The investigation kicked off after the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved 15 boxes of government files, including 184 classified documents, in January. It subsequently handed them over to the FBI as it referred the matter to the bureau.
Trump faces an additional count of conspiracy to obstruct justice alongside Waltine Nauta, a military valet to Trump during his time in the White House who went on to serve as a personal aide after he left office in January 2021.
The men are also charged with withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, and carrying out a scheme to conceal.
Trump and Nauta are separately each charged with one count of making false statements to federal investigators. The indictment was filed in the Southern District of Florida on Thursday after it was returned by a grand jury.
Trump railed against Nauta's indictment, saying on his social media website that he "has done a fantastic job! They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about 'Trump.'"
"He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot. The FBI and DOJ are CORRUPT!" he wrote.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the months-long investigation after he was appointed to the case by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, said prosecutors "will seek a speedy trial on this matter consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused."
"We very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida," he said in brief remarks to reporters. "We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone."
Smith did not take questions, but appeared to dismiss suggestions from Trump and his allies that the probe is politically-motivated, saying the application of US law, and collection of facts "determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more, nothing less."
The indictment alleges that Trump ordered "scores of boxes," including many that contained classified documents, to be taken to Mar-a-Lago as he was leaving office. The documents were stored at a number of sites at the golf resort that serves as Trump's residence, including at a ballroom, a bathroom and shower and a business center.
At the resort, Trump showed classified documents to other individuals on two occasions in 2021, including an audio-recorded meeting with a writer, publisher and two staffers in July when he showed the group a "plan of attack" prepared by the Pentagon, the indictment says. The plan, he said, was "highly confidential" and "secret."
"As president I could have declassified it," Trump is quoted as saying. "Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret."
The comments appear to undermine one of Trump's principal defenses in which he has repeatedly claimed he declassified the files before he left office.
During the following August or September, prosecutors allege Trump showed representatives of his political action committee a classified map related to a military operation "and told the representative that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close."
None of the individuals had security clearances, according to the indictment.
The indictment further alleges that Nauta, Trump's one-time valet, personally moved roughly 64 boxes of government records "at Trump's direction" from a storage room to Trump's personal residence after Trump met with an attorney May 23. The boxes were transported between that day and June 2 when the attorney returned to review the cache, prosecutors allege.
About 30 boxes were returned to the storage room on June 2 for the attorney's review so they could produce a custodian of records certificate for federal investigators. The remainder of the boxes were left in Trump's residence, and prosecutors said neither Trump nor Nauta informed the attorney of their existence.
The lawyer would then go on to place 38 classified documents from the storage room into a Redweld folder that was later duct taped shut and handed over to investigators.
After the attorney completed the search, Trump asked, "Did you find anything?... Is it bad? Good?" the indictment says. Trump additionally gestured toward the lawyer in a way that appeared to indicate Trump wanted him to take the documents and if there's anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out," the lawyer said.
He emphasized that Trump did not verbalize the request beyond making a plucking motion. The attorney contacted an FBI agent the following day and gave the documents to the FBI.