U.S. prosecutors revealed an indictment against former President Donald Trump on Friday, including allegations that he endangered some of the country's most sensitive security secrets by handling unclassified documents after leaving the White House in 2021. The Department of Justice announced the indictment on a day that saw the resignation of two of Trump's attorneys in the case. The indictment includes 37 counts, and Trump's former aide, Walt Nauta, also faces charges in the matter.
The indictment states that the documents include some of the most sensitive American military secrets, including information on the U.S. nuclear program and potential vulnerabilities in the event of an attack. One document pertains to a foreign country's support for terrorism in contradiction to U.S. interests. The indictment notes that these government materials originated from the Pentagon, the CIA, the NSA, and other intelligence agencies.
Prosecutors said that Trump showed another person a Department of Defense document described as a "plan of attack" against another country, indicating that Trump "conspired" with Nauta to keep classified documents he took from the White House and hid them from a federal grand jury. Nauta faces six counts in the case.
Prosecutors argued that the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents could threaten U.S. national security, foreign relations, and intelligence gathering. During an FBI investigation on May 26, 2022, Nauta lied to investigators when he claimed he did not know how some documents made their way to Trump's suite at the Mar-a-Lago resort, even though he was actually involved in moving them there from a storage room, according to the indictment.
Trump is set to appear in court for the first time regarding this case in Miami on Tuesday, just one day before turning 77. Trump kept the documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and at his golf club in New Jersey. The indictment notes that the resort hosted tens of thousands of guests at over 150 events while the documents were there.
No federal charges have ever been filed against a former American president in U.S. history, and the indictment comes at a time when Trump's chances of securing the Republican nomination in next year's presidential election are increasing. Investigators seized nearly 13,000 documents from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, approximately a year ago. Among these documents, 100 were marked as classified, although one of Trump's attorneys previously stated that all classified records had been returned to the government.
"I am an innocent man," Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, following the charges against him. He has claimed that he declassified these documents while he was president, but his attorneys did not present this argument in court filings.
A source familiar with the situation reported on Friday that Judge Aileen Cannon has been initially assigned to the case. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that Cannon could also preside over the trial. Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2019, made headlines last year when she ruled in favor of the former president at a critical stage of the case, before the ruling was overturned on appeal. Cannon will determine several matters, including the trial date and sentencing for Trump if convicted.
