Trump indictment details released: former president faces 37 counts
FILE – Former President Donald Trump attends an event with supporters at the Westside Conservative Breakfast, in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, June 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)
By ERIC TUCKER, JILL COLVIN and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press
Former President Donald Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents.
That’s according to an indictment unsealed today that also alleges that he described a Pentagon “plan of attack” and shared a classified map related to a military operation.
The indictment marks the Justice Department’s first official confirmation of a criminal case against Trump arising from the retention of hundreds of documents at his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.
Charged alongside with Trump was Walt Nauta, a Trump aide who was seen on surveillance camera removing boxes at Mar-a-Lago.
The indictment accuses Trump of having improperly removed scores of boxes from the White House to take them to Mar-a-Lago, many of them containing classified information.
Trump is the first former president in U.S. history to face criminal charges by the federal government that he once oversaw.
The indictment carries unmistakably grave legal consequences, including the possibility of prison if Trump’s convicted.
But it also has enormous political implications, potentially upending a Republican presidential primary that Trump had been dominating and testing anew the willingness of GOP voters and party leaders to stick with a now twice-indicted candidate who could face still more charges.
The indictment arises from a months-long investigation into whether Trump broke the law by holding onto hundreds of documents marked classified at his Palm Beach property, Mar-a-Lago, and whether Trump took steps to obstruct the government’s efforts to recover the records.
Prosecutors have said that Trump took roughly 300 classified documents to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House, including some 100 that were seized by the FBI last August in a search of the home that underscored the gravity of the Justice Department’s investigation. Trump has repeatedly insisted that he was entitled to keep the classified documents when he left the White House, and has also claimed without evidence that he had declassified them.
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