UPDATE - Federal indictment in Trump classified documents case unsealed

ADDS DETAILS THROUGHOUT, INCLUDING SPECIAL COUNSEL COMMENTS, INDICTMENT DETAILS

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 those charges relate to documents that were handed over to FBI investigators by Trump's attorney in June.

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.

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. He did not take questions.

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 storage room.

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.