Source: PETER DEJONG / Getty
The Department of Justice has unsealed its indictment against former President Donald Trump, revealing lurid details of the federal government’s allegations that he withheld classified documents and obstructed attempts to retrieve them.
On Friday afternoon (June 9th), prosecutors for the government unsealed the 49-page indictment covering their allegations against Trump and his aide, Walter Nauta taking classified documents when he left the White House on January 20th, 2021. It stated that the documents contained information on “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.” The actual number of counts in the indictment amount to 38 in number, with the first 31 covering each document as charges of willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act.
The indictment alleges that Trump kept those documents in plain sight throughout his Mar-A-Lago golf estate, including in a bathroom, a shower, and a ballroom. One photo in the indictment shows a box of highly classified documents that had spilled onto the floor of one of the storage rooms at the Palm Beach estate. It also contains details of evidence that the former president shared a “highly sensitive” plan of attack against Iran with guests at his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club last July, including a recording where he described the information as “highly confidential” while admitting that it was not declassified.
Adding to the mounting evidence are the allegations of Trump’s activities in obstructing the Department of Justice, including “providing to the F.B.I. and grand jury just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully.” Nauta’s involvement was the source of a heavy federal investigation, particularly as it was discovered that he was caught on camera moving the boxes of sensitive information out of Mar-A-Lago with a maintenance worker before the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search there last August.
Special Counsel Jack Smith is slated to release a statement concerning the unsealing of the indictment at 3 P.M. from his office in Washington D.C. Trump, meanwhile, is expected to attend campaign events in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday (June 10th). He is slated to appear in federal court in Miami, Florida next Tuesday, marking the first time an American president has appeared in court in such a situation.
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