WASHINGTON — Former U.S. President Donald Trump faces 37 felony charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House, including top secret files on U.S. nuclear and defense programs, according to an indictment made public Friday.
The charging document said that on at least two occasions Trump showed classified documents about U.S. military operations to people who did not have a security clearance. One of those documents was a “plan of attack” against another country that a military official had drawn up, according to the indictment.
Of the 37 counts in the indictment, 31 of them pertain to the willful retention of national defense information. The other counts are related to alleged conspiracy, obstruction and false statements. Altogether, the counts could result in a yearslong prison sentence for Trump if he is found guilty.
The U.S. Justice Department accuses Trump of ignoring demands to return documents he had taken from the White House to his estate in the southern U.S. state of Florida and his golf club in the northeastern state of New Jersey, and of asking aides to help him hide the documents.
Aide faces charges
A Trump aide, Walt Nauta, is also facing charges in the case; he was indicted on six counts for allegedly helping Trump to hide the documents.
Trump told his lawyers that he did not want people looking through the boxes of documents stored at his Florida home, according to the indictment.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Trump said to one of his attorneys, according to the indictment.
The indictment described Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate as an active social club that hosted tens of thousands of guests during the time the documents were housed there.
It said that Trump kept classified documents in multiple rooms of his Florida estate, including the bathroom, ballroom, storeroom, office and bedroom.
U.S. special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, said Friday in a brief statement to reporters in Washington, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everybody.”
“Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk,” he said.
Smith said that Trump, like any defendant, must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and that his office would seek a speedy trial before a jury of Florida residents.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump accused Smith on Friday of being “a Trump Hater.”
Historic first
A federal grand jury in Florida indicted Trump on Thursday, making him the first former American president in history to face a federal indictment.
Shortly afterward, Trump confirmed his indictment on Truth Social, saying he had been summoned to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax,” Trump wrote, apparently alluding to boxes of classified government documents seized by the FBI from his Florida estate last August.
In a video statement, Trump defiantly asserted that President Joe Biden’s administration has “weaponized” the Justice Department and the FBI to target him.
“I’m an innocent man, I’m an innocent person,” Trump said. “We can’t let this continue to go on because it’s ripping our country to shreds.”
Biden declined Friday to comment on the indictment.
When asked by reporters in North Carolina if he had spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland, he replied, “I have not spoken to him at all and I’m not going to speak with him.”
The White House said Biden had no advance knowledge of the indictment and he found out at the same time as everyone else.
Supporters, detractors
Trump’s staunch supporters rallied behind the former president. In a brief statement, Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote, “It’s a sad day for America. God bless President Trump.”
Two of Trump’s opponents for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, decried what they called the “weaponization” of the Justice Department against the former president.
Another Republican presidential hopeful, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, withheld judgment on the indictment, saying he’d have “more to say when the facts are revealed.”
Democrats voiced support for the indictment. Representative Adam Schiff of California, who served as the manager in Trump’s first impeachment, wrote: “For four years, he acted like he was above the law. But he should be treated like any other lawbreaker. And today, he has been.”
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