US prosecutors yesterday unsealed a 37-count indictment against Donald Trump, accusing the former president of risking some of the country’s most sensitive security secrets after leaving the White House in 2021.
Trump mishandled classified documents that included information about the secretive US nuclear programme and potential domestic vulnerabilities in the event of an attack, the federal indictment said.
Trump also discussed with lawyers the possibility of lying to government officials seeking to recover the documents; stored some of the documents around a toilet, and moved boxes of them around his Mar-a-Lago Florida resort home to prevent them from being found, the charges said.
“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 49-page indictment.
The Justice Department made the criminal charges public on a tumultuous day in which two of Trump’s lawyers quit the case. The indictment charges Trump with 37 counts. A former aide, Walt Nauta, faces charges in the case as well.
Trump is due to make a first court appearance in the case in Miami on Tuesday, a day before his 77th birthday. Since Trump would serve any sentences concurrently if convicted, the maximum prison time he faces is 20 years for obstruction of justice, which carries the highest penalty.
US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the prosecution, said in a brief statement: “Our laws that protect national defence information are critical to the safety and security of the US, and they must be enforced.”
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everybody.” He said as with any defendant, those accused were presumed innocent until proven guilty and he pledged to seek a speedy trial before a jury of citizens in Florida.
Trump has proclaimed his innocence in the case. After the charges were unsealed, he attacked Smith on social media.
“He is a Trump Hater – a deranged ‘psycho’ that shouldn’t be involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice’,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Materials came from the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies, the indictment said.
One document concerned a foreign country’s support of terrorism against US interests.
Prosecutors said Trump showed another person a Defence Department document described as a “plan of attack” against another country.
The indictment includes photographs of Trump’s boxes on a ballroom stage, in a club bathroom and in a storage room, where some were laying on the floor.
Trump kept the documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his golf club in New Jersey. Mar-a-Lago hosted tens of thousands of guests at more than 150 events during the time they were there, the indictment alleges.
Prosecutors said the unauthorised disclosure of the classified documents could risk US national security, foreign relations, and intelligence gathering.
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