A 37-count criminal indictment against Donald Trump over his handling of classified government records was unsealed Friday.
The charging document was made public a day after the former president was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Miami.
Among other allegations, the indictment says that Trump showed classified documents to other people in the summer of 2021, after leaving office.
Follow our live coverage of Donald Trump’s indictment in the classified documents case.
One of those documents was a “plan of attack” that he said was prepared by the Pentagon, while the other was a classified map related to a military operation, the indictment alleges.
The FBI raid of Trump’s Florida home last August discovered hundreds of classified documents, which he had failed to turn over to U.S. officials despite months of their efforts to recover them.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is seen in Midtown on April 03, 2023 in New York City. Trump is scheduled to be arraigned tomorrow at a Manhattan courthouse following his indictment by a grand jury.
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The indictment says Trump was aware of the highly sensitive nature of the documents, quoting him at one point as saying: “As president, I could have declassified it … but this is still secret.”
Also charged in the indictment was Trump’s valet, Walter Nauta, who faces several of the same charges as his boss, with whom he allegedly conspired to keep classified records and hide them from a federal grand jury.
Trump is due to be arraigned in Miami on Tuesday, the day before his 77th birthday.
He and Nauta each face a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges, which are conspiracy to obstruct justice and counts related to withholding and concealing the government records.
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Thirty-one of the counts accuse Trump of willful retention of national defense information. He is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice; withholding a document or record; corruptly concealing a document or record; concealing a document in a federal investigation; scheme to conceal; and false statements and representations.
Trump was put under criminal investigation in the spring of 2022, after the FBI was notified that classified documents were found in the 15 boxes of government records he gave to the National Records and Archives Administration after months of effort by NARA to recover documents the agency believed were missing.
By law, presidents must give NARA all government records when they leave office.
The indictment notes, “As he departed the White House, TRUMP caused scores of boxes, many of which contained classified documents, to be transported to The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, where he maintained his residence.”
“TRUMP was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents,” the indictment says.
The indictment estimates that Trump’s trial would take between 21 and 60 days.
Earlier Friday, two of his lawyers resigned from representing him in the classified documents case, and in another pending federal criminal investigation for his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Read the indictment against Donald Trump
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Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/09/trump-indictment-in-classified-records-case-is-unsealed.html