June 9, 2023 Latest on federal indictment against Donald Trump

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters on June 9 in Washington, DC.

Former President Donald Trump is attacking special counsel Jack Smith in a series of posts on Truth Social following his indictment, despite repeated warnings from his legal team that everything he says publicly could be used against him.

Trump has claimed Smith is “deranged,” a “Trump hater” and labeled him “a thug” after the special counsel made a brief statement about the former president’s indictment Friday.

While, unsurprising, given his attacks on the last special counsel who investigated him, Trump’s latest diatribe comes as he is still finalizing what his legal team will look like when he arrives in Miami on Tuesday. Todd Blanche has taken the lead on the team but is trying to add another Florida-based attorney before Trump is due in court after two attorneys also handling the case departed abruptly. 

Whether the client’s repeated attacks on Smith hurt those efforts remains to be seen. But Trump’s legal team has cautioned him in recent days not to attack Smith — advice he has clearly ignored. 

Critics of former President Donald Trump in Republican fund-raising circles fear that even with his looming legal troubles, the 2024 contest is shaping up as a repeat of 2016 when the brash then-celebrity real-estate developer seized on GOP divisions to bulldoze a path to the nomination and then the White House.

As it was in 2016, there are again many candidates to choose from. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum all kicked off campaigns for the GOP nomination this week.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and talk radio host Larry Elder all have previously announced their candidacies for the nomination.

Some deep-pocketed groups, including one aligned with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, have pledged to elevate a Trump rival, although it’s not clear at this stage whether all the outside organizations that oppose Trump will coalesce around a single candidate.

Asked for comment Thursday before the indictment news broke, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung did not directly address the actions of the groups opposed to the former president but said that Trump was “dominating in poll after poll – both nationally and statewide – because voters want someone who can beat Joe Biden and retake the White House.”

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, and has cast the federal investigation and indictment as “election interference.” His campaign – which saw a surge in donations after his March indictment in a separate New York case connected to an alleged hush-money scheme – also quickly sought to raise political donations off the latest indictment news.

A CNN poll in May underscores the challenges Trump’s rivals face. He was the first choice of 53% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters in the primary, even after his earlier indictment. Trump’s support was roughly double the 26% who backed DeSantis as their first choice.

Read more

The Justice Department believes it will take prosecutors in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump 21 business days, or about a month, in court to present their case to a jury at trial, according to a document that prosecutors filed with the court alongside the indictment.

The estimate does not include how long the defense might take to present its case, which includes the possibility that Trump could choose to testify in his own defense.

Trump seen on January 6, 2018.

The federal indictment against Donald Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, was unsealed Friday, providing more details about the special counsel’s investigation into the former president’s handling of classified documents.

Trump faces a total of 37 counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, according to the indictment.

The former president, who has denied any wrongdoing, is expected to appear in a Miami courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.

Here’s what else we learned:

Some Republican members of Congress have quick to condemn the historic federal indictment against former President Donald Trump and come to his defense in the hours since the document was unsealed on Friday.

Others, most notably the top two Senate Republicans, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Thune, have remained conspicuously silent thus far.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, meanwhile, proved to be a rare member of his party willing to criticize Trump over the probe and defend the Department of Justice’s investigation, saying he’s “shocked” at Trump’s “alleged callousness” and calling the obstruction allegations in the newly unsealed indictment “inexcusable.”

Here are some of the other remarks from members of the GOP since the document became public:

Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said that although she does have “serious concerns with the classified documents being handled improperly in this case,” she questions the prosecutors’ motivations.

“The Department of Justice should never be weaponized to target President Biden’s political opponent,” she said.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi said in a statement: “The Justice Department shouldn’t be weaponized against the President’s political opponents, regardless of party. It’s an affront to our faith in the American legal and justice system when they are used for political purposes, whether real or perceived.”

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called the indictment an “affront to our country’s glorious 246-year legacy of independence from tyranny.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee accused the DOJ of pursuing “its political agenda to take down a former president.”

Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana said the “Biden administration is arresting their top political adversary for something Biden himself admitted to doing just this year. President Biden’s weaponization of our justice system against his enemies will do lasting damage to the rule of law.”

Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah said the charges “are equally unprecedented and unconscionable. This is a sad day for any American who believes in the rule of law. The National Archives have confirmed that every single president since Ronald Reagan has mishandled classified materials.”

In the weeks before Donald Trump was indicted over his alleged mishandling of classified defense documents and alleged attempt to cover it up, the former president kept arguing that it would be unfair to prosecute him given that President Joe Biden took “1,850 boxes” of documents to the University of Delaware.

Trump made similar comments on Thursday after learning he was being indicted by a federal grand jury, posting on social media that “Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware.”

But Trump’s vague insinuations that there is something improper about the existence of the Biden collection at the University of Delaware are baseless. The collection of donated documents is from Biden’s 36-year tenure as a US senator for Delaware. Unlike presidents, who are subject to the Presidential Records Act, senators own their offices’ documents and can do whatever they want with them – donate them to colleges, keep them at their homes, give them to journalists, even throw them in the trash.

It has been public knowledge for more than a decade that Biden donated his Senate documents to the University of Delaware, from which he graduated in 1965. Biden announced the donation in a public appearance at the school in 2011, generating media coverage.

Biden did impose conditions on public access to the collection. According to the university website, the papers will only be made widely accessible two years after Biden retires from public life. Until then, they can only be accessed with Biden’s express consent.

That restriction has frustrated Biden critics who want the documents to be made available publicly much sooner, but it is common for senators to place timing conditions on the documents they have donated to universities.

Trump’s claim in late April that Biden has “been totally uncooperative – won’t show the documents under any circumstances” is not true. Reid reported in February that the FBI had conducted two searches at the university, with the consent and cooperation of Biden’s legal team, in connection with the federal investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents.

Read more details here.

Clockwise, from top left: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy

Donald Trump’s rivals in the race to be the Republican nominee for president are reacting to the former president’s indictment.

Here’s what some of them have said:

Ron DeSantis: People close to DeSantis’ political operation told CNN after the indictment was unsealed Friday that they do not expect him to deviate from the statement he made the day prior.

The Florida governor tweeted Thursday, “The weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a mortal threat to a free society. We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation.”

“Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter? The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all,” he added.

A Republican fundraiser close to the campaign said Friday that within the governor’s close circle of confidants, there is not a push for him to change his posture toward Trump’s alleged actions. They have been satisfied with the tack he has taken since Trump’s first indictment in March, according to the fundraiser.

Nikki Haley: The former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations released a statement Friday that characterized the indictment as “prosecutorial overreach,” adding that it was time to “beyond the endless drama and distractions.”

“This is not how justice should be pursued in our country,” Haley said.

Chris Christie: On the heels of the indictment, Christie’s super PAC “Tell It Like It Is” is launching its first TV ad of the 2024 cycle this weekend. The spot takes a direct shot at the former president’s qualifications to run.

“The latest round of indictments serve as another reminder that the Republican Party needs a new direction,” Colin Reed, senior adviser for Tell It Like It Is PAC, said Friday.

The former New Jersey governor tweeted Thursday that “no one is above the law.”

“Let’s see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released. As I have said before, no one is above the law, no matter how much they wish they were. We will have more to say when the facts are revealed,” he wrote.

Asa Hutchinson: The former Arkansas governor – who said he read through the indictment against Trump after it was unsealed Friday – called the charges against the former president “serious” and argued that Republicans should not lightly dismiss the indictment.

On Thursday night, Hutchinson had called for Trump to drop out of the 2024 race after the former president said he has been indicted.

He doubled down in an interview with CNN on Friday, arguing that Trump should end his campaign “for the good of the country and for the good of the office of presidency.”

Mike Pence: Before the indictment was unsealed Friday, the former vice president called on US Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the document so Americans can “judge for themselves whether this is just the latest incident of weaponization and politicization at the Justice Department or it’s something different.”

Pence had also said he thought any demands for Trump to suspend his campaign had been “premature,” saying “everyone is innocent until proven guilty” and that Trump has a right to make his defense.

Pence did not acknowledge a question about his reaction to the indictment’s unsealing later Friday as he met with New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu.

Vivek Ramaswamy: The entrepreneur released a statement Thursday saying, “This is an affront to every citizen: we cannot devolve into a banana republic where the party in power uses police force to arrest its political opponents.”

Ramaswamy also repeated his pledge to pardon Trump should he be elected.

CNN’s Kit Maher, Omar Jimenez and Brian Rokus contributed to this reporting.

The National Archives is pushing back on claims made by former President Donald Trump, his lawyers and his allies over his retention of classified documents, for which he now faces a federal indictment. 

On Friday, the Archives took the rare step of releasing a public statement rebuking claims suggesting that Trump was allowed to keep classified materials under the Presidential Records Act.  

Former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore, who worked on the classified documents case before leaving the former president’s legal team in recent weeks, mischaracterized the Presidential Records Act repeatedly during media appearances this week, including on CNN on Thursday night.

Parlatore said that a president “is supposed to take the next two years after they leave office to go through all these documents to figure out what’s personal and what’s presidential.”

In its statement Friday, the National Archives flatly disputed that claim, stating, “There is no history, practice, or provision in law for presidents to take official records with them when they leave office to sort through, such as for a two-year period as described in some reports.”

Parlatore also suggested Thursday that the National Archives was somehow delinquent in its duty to set up a separate government facility for Trump after he left office in 2021. 

In the past, this has been true for presidents who notified NARA before leaving office that they intended to build a presidential library — something Trump did not do.

“Prior to the end of his administration, President Trump did not communicate any intent to NARA with regard to funding, building, endowing, and donating a Presidential Library to NARA under the Presidential Libraries Act,” the Archives said in its statement. 

“Accordingly, the Trump Presidential records have been and continue to be maintained by NARA in the Washington, DC, area, and there was no reason for NARA to consider a temporary facility in Florida or elsewhere,” the statement added.

Read more.

Prosecutors allege former President Donald Trump took several steps to obstruct the investigation into his handling of classified documents, according to the federal indictment unsealed Friday.

Trump told his attorney to tell the Justice Department that he didn’t have the documents sought by the subpoena, prosecutors say in the indictment.

In addition, it alleges, Trump directed his aide Walt Nauta to move documents to hide them from Trump’s own attorneys and FBI agents, and even suggested to his lawyer to “hide or destroy documents” sought by the subpoena. 

The charge: Trump and Nauta both face a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to the federal indictment.

“The purpose of the conspiracy was for TRUMP to keep classified documents he has taken with him from the White House and to hide and conceal them from a federal grand jury,” the indictment read.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appears on CNN on Friday, June 9.

Thirty-one classified documents lie at the center of special counsel Jack Smith’s federal case against Donald Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, despite investigators having recovered hundreds of classified documents from the former president’s Florida estate. 

They are behind the 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information for which Trump has been charged.  

The reason why Smith’s team zeroed in on that batch of documents, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said on CNN, is because the classified documents will have to be entered into court for the criminal case and possibly a trial, and the US intelligence community had to agree that exposing them to people without the necessary clearances would not present a risk to national security.  

“Many Espionage Act cases never go to court because you can’t get that agreement. People aren’t willing to essentially sacrifice the secret or sensitive nature of the documents,” said McCabe, who is a CNN contributor. 

What’s on the documents? The indictment unsealed Friday said that over the course of 2022, the government recovered a total of 337 documents from Trump. Of the 31 at the center of the case, the indictment said 21 of them were marked “Top Secret,” nine were marked “Secret,” and one contained “no marking.” One 2020 document concerned the “nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” according to the indictment.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a joint statement.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top two Democrats in Congress, have weighed in for the first time on former President Donald Trump’s indictment.

For its part, the White House has avoided making any comment on the matter, insisting it is the Justice Department’s purview and will play out independently from President Joe Biden’s influence. It’s a delicate balance aimed at avoiding adding any fuel to the fire of Trump and his allies’ claims that he is being politically persecuted.

Many Republicans, meanwhile, have met the indictment’s unsealing Friday with fierce condemnation.

As the Department of Justice unsealed the charges against Donald Trump on Friday concern started to settle in among some of his allies, a source familiar with the mood around the former president in Bedminster, New Jersey, told CNN.

This tone was different from what was happening within Trump’s team on Thursday evening. Advisers spent the hours after learning Trump had been indicted by the Justice Department focusing on the political implications, sources said.

One ally said that the indictment would only help him in the polls and another adviser indicated they were glad that the indictment had happened before the end of the fundraising quarter to help boost what they described as lagging fundraising numbers.

At this point, they were also feeling emboldened by the statements of support from Republican lawmakers and conservative allies, sources who were with Trump told CNN.

But by Friday, the former president’s aides began to acknowledge the legal implications of the indictment, the source said.

His team still thinks Trump will likely benefit politically — at least in the short term — the source added, but they’ve grown more wary of how the indictment will play out legally.

Former President Donald Trump and his advisers are still determining how to best respond to the indictment after it was unsealed Friday afternoon, sources close to Trump told CNN.

Trump spent the morning playing golf with Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez at his New Jersey club as his allies made rounds of phone calls shoring up support for the former President after his indictment the day before. 

Trump’s team maintains that it was business as usual – and that the former president would still be attending both of his campaign events this weekend in Georgia and North Carolina. 

Trump has repeatedly said that he will continue running for president even if indicted.

Trump advisers insisted there was no plan for the former president to make live remarks Friday. Instead, Trump spent the afternoon lashing out on Truth Social, attacking Special Counsel Jack Smith and his wife and indicating he was being treated unfairly.

Boxes are stacked in the storage room, in this photo included in Donald Trump’s federal indictment.

A newly unsealed federal indictment lays out, at some points in detail by the minute, how former President Donald Trump allegedly directed an aide to move documents to and from a Mar-a-Lago storage room in the days before Trump’s attorney searched the room for classified documents sought in a subpoena.

Trump and the aide, Walt Nauta, face several obstruction and concealment related charges stemming from the alleged conduct.

All told, in the days leading up to the attorney’s search for the documents, Nauta moved 64 boxes from the storage room to the residence, according to prosecutors. He returned only 30, the indictment says. 

“Neither TRUMP nor NAUTA informed Trump Attorney 1 of this information,” the indictment said. 

Attorney 1, who is not named in the indictment, tracks with the role Evan Corcoran played in searching for Mar-a-Lago for documents responsive to the May 2022 subpoena.

Here’s how things played out, according to the indictment’s detailed narrative:

Trump’s exchange with his attorney after the search: After the attorney had done the search for the documents, according to the indictment, Trump discussed with the attorney what to do with 38 documents marked as classified the attorney had found and placed in a folder.  

“Did you find anything? … Is it bad? Good?” Trump allegedly said, and they discussed whether the attorney should bring the documents to his hotel room to keep them safe.

Trump allegedly made a “plucking motion” during the conversation, which the attorney memorialized as meaning: “Okay why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.” 

Former President Donald Trump argued his innocence and criticized special counsel Jack Smith in posts on his social media site on Friday. In one post, he claimed, “Under the Presidential Records Act, I’m allowed to do all this.”

Trump didn’t specify what he meant by “all this.” Regardless, nothing in the Presidential Records Act permits the conduct Trump is accused of — keeping classified national defense documents after leaving office, showing some of them to people, and scheming to conceal them from investigators.

In reality, the Presidential Records Act says that all presidential documents are to be in the custody and control of the federal National Archives and Records Administration the moment a president leaves office.

In other words, even if a government document was not classified and not even sensitive, the law says Trump should not have had it at his Mar-a-Lago resort after leaving office.

Trump has for months made false claims about the Presidential Records Act, claiming repeatedly that the law says he was supposed to “negotiate,” “deal” or “talk” with the National Archives and Records Administration about returning documents. As CNN has explained in previous fact checks, the law does not say that either.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy reacts to the indictment against former President Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News on Friday, June 9.

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking to paint former President Donald Trump’s indictment as politically motivated and asking for more information about the FBI’s search of Trump’s home in Florida.

The letter is the latest defense by House Republicans of Trump, with Speaker Kevin McCarthy leading the charge, vowing to work with Jordan and other lawmakers to defend Trump and undermine the Department of Justice’s case.

The letter, which raises several procedural questions, reveals that House Republicans on the judiciary panel interviewed a former FBI official who had issues with how the agency conducted the search of Trump’s home – an example Jordan is using to show why he needs to see the documents he is requesting.

Through the letter, Jordan re-ups his request for all documents and communications between the FBI and DOJ ahead of the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, along with other information on law enforcement communication and coordination before the raid.

Jordan has asked for information about the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home before, but this time he narrows in on some key DOJ individuals, including Jay Bratt, the Justice Department’s chief of counterintelligence, who is central to the DOJ’s classified documents case.

McCarthy, meanwhile, blasted the 37-count indictment against former president Donald Trump in an interview with Fox News on Friday. 

McCarthy said he’s been in touch with Jordan and Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer about “things that we can do to ensure equal justice” is applied to Biden as it is to Trump.

“I think Jim Jordan is going to bring it out tonight, when you learn of some of the things that he had said of how this investigation was carried out, you’ll see then that this judgment is wrong by this DOJ, that they treated President Trump differently than they treat others, and it didn’t have to be this way,” he said. 

The US Secret Service “will not seek any special accommodations outside of what would be required” to ensure the continued safety of former President Donald Trump when he travels to Miami for a court appearance next Tuesday, the agency’s spokesperson said Friday.  

“We have the utmost confidence in the professionalism and commitment to security shared by our law enforcement partners in Florida,” he said.

CNN reported earlier Friday that law enforcement officials from various agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, were meeting in Miami to discuss security preparations ahead of Trump’s expected court appearance.

A threat assessment of the building has already been completed and found no credible threats, a law enforcement source told CNN.  

However, FBI special agents are actively working to identify any possible threats associated with the upcoming court appearance, four law enforcement sources told CNN.

So far, the FBI is aware of various groups like the Proud Boys discussing traveling to south Florida to publicly show support for Trump, sources said, but there is currently no indication of any specific and credible threat.

In addition to working their informant networks, FBI agents and analysts are reviewing publicly available online platforms frequented by domestic extremists for any indication of plans for violence.  

“We do not want a repeat of [the January 6th] violence,” one senior FBI source said.  

In the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed Friday, the Justice Department outlines audio recordings of two occasions after he had left the White House where he touted the classified documents.

This expands upon CNN’s previous exclusive reporting published before the indictment was unsealed.

In July 2021, Trump was allegedly recorded acknowledging that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified as president. During the interaction, Trump showed and described a “plan of attack” that the former president said was prepared for him by the Department of Defense, prosecutors allege.  

In a second interaction, which prosecutors said happened in August or September of 2021, Trump showed a representative of his political action committee a “classified map related to a military operation,” prosecutors say, and said that he “should not be showing it to the representative” and that the representative “should not get too close.” 

The federal indictment of Trump alleges that he disclosed classified information to several people without security clearances. 

The audio was “recorded with Trump’s knowledge and consent,” the indictment said.

Former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger said the documents that former President Donald Trump is accused of mishandling were not over-classified.

He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper Friday that he foresees the topic of “over-classification” becoming a talking point in defense of the former president following the special counsel’s indictment.

While Kinzinger acknowledged that “we do have an over-classification problem” in the country, he added that “these are not documents that are over-classified” in regard to the Mar-a-Lago probe.

Photos included in the unsealed indictment of Donald Trump show that the former president allegedly stored boxes of documents stored in places like a ballroom and a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago — many of those places are not locked, according to one Mar-a-Lago member.

“Once you are on property, you can really go anywhere. I do,” the member said when asked about security in various parts of the club. “Being a private club, they really can’t stop you from going into the public spaces.”

In order to go onto the property, you must be a member or a guest of a member. Members have been known to use proximity to the former president as a draw to entertain clients and guests at the club, multiple sources told CNN. 

This member said that the White and Gold ballroom — one of the rooms some of the boxes were kept, according to the indictment — is easily accessible to any guest.

Why this matters: The indictment alleges that Trump retained documents related to national defense that were classified at the highest levels — and some were so sensitive, they required special handling.

It includes one document found at Mar-a-Lago, which was classified as top secret and dated June 2020, “concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” according to the indictment.  

After the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump was unsealed Friday, special counsel Jack Smith said his office would seek a “speedy trial.”

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters Friday, June 9, in Washington, DC.

Special counsel Jack Smith said that US laws “apply to everyone” in remarks following the unsealing of the indictment of former President Donald Trump and one of his aides.

Smith also lauded the prosecutors in his office and said that the defendants in the case are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters Friday, June 9, in Washington, DC.

Special counsel Jack Smith urged Americans to read the indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed Friday. it is the first time a former president has faced federal criminal charges.

He said that there are laws that protect national defense information that are “critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced.”

“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” Smith said, adding his office applied those laws and collected facts during the course of its investigation.

“That’s what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more and nothing less,” he said.

You can read the 49-page indictment here.

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks on Friday, June 9.

Special counsel Jack Smith is now speaking following the unsealing of the indictment of former President Donald Trump and one of his aides. Smith has been leading a months-long investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, according to the indictment, which marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges.

The indictment provides details about where Trump allegedly stored classified information and correspondence within his inner circle that prosecutors allege show that Trump sought to conceal documents being sought in a federal investigation. 

Walt Nauta, the Trump aide that was also indicted Friday, lied to investigators when he was interviewed by the FBI in May 2022 for the probe into the former president’s handling of classified documents, prosecutors allege.

What else to know: Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, was tasked in November with looking into whether Trump or his aides committed crimes by taking classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left the White House and whether they obstructed the investigation.

Prior to the indictment of the former president on Thursday, the probe escalated in recent weeks with several high-profile interviews and a former White House official telling prosecutors that Trump knew the proper process for declassifying documents and followed it correctly at times while in office, undercutting Trump’s claims that he automatically declassified everything he took with him to Mar-a-Lago.

Former President Donald Trump attacked special counsel Jack Smith in his first comments after the federal indictment was unsealed Friday.

Trump attacks Smith as “deranged” and a “Trump Hater” who shouldn’t be involved in any case “having to do with ‘Justice,’” the former president said in a Truth Social post.

As part of the indictment, prosecutors point to several of former President Donald Trump’s public statements, illustrating how he understood how classified information was supposed to be handled under the law.  

Several of the statements highlighted by prosecutors are from Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Trump repeatedly lambasted the mishandling of classified information and said that he would aggressively enforce laws surrounding their protection if elected.  

The indictment also points to a statement that Trump made as president in 2018: “I have a unique, Constitutional responsibility to protect the Nation’s classified information,” he said.

Trump went on to say, according to the indictment, that “such access [to national secrets] is particularly inappropriate when former officials have transitioned into highly partisan positions and seek to use real or perceived access to sensitive information to validate their political attacks. Any access granted to our Nation’s secrets should be in furtherance of national, not personal, interests.”  

CNN has previously reported that a former career White House official who was in charge of advising the Trump and Barack Obama administrations on the declassification process testified to the special counsel that Trump knew the proper process for declassifying documents and followed it correctly at times while in office.

Former President Donald Trump retained documents related to national defense that were classified at the highest levels — and some were so sensitive, they required special handling, according to the indictment. 

It includes one document found at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago resort, which was classified as top secret and dated June 2020, “concerning nuclear capabilities of a foreign country,” according to the indictment. 

This document was not only classified as top secret, but also included additional restrictions of “ORCON” and “NOFORN.”

Documents designated as ORCON cannot be disseminated outside of the department issuing it without approval. Those labeled NOFORN cannot be shared with foreign nationals.

Boxes are stacked in the storage room, in this photo included in Donald Trump’s federal indictment.

Donald Trump aide Walt Nauta lied to investigators when he was interviewed by the FBI in May 2022 for the probe into the former president’s handling of classified documents, prosecutors allege in a federal indictment unsealed this afternoon.

Nauta falsely said he was not aware of documents being brought to Trump’s residence for his review before the former president delivered 15 boxes to the National Archives in 2022, the indictment alleges. But Nauta himself had helped move boxes from the storage room to Trump’s residence, according to prosecutors.

The indictment says that between November 2021 and January 2022, Nauta and another Trump employee brought boxes from the Mar-a-Lago storage room to Trump’s residence at the former president’s direction.

When lawyers for former President Donald Trump met with him to discuss how to respond to a May 2022 subpoena seeking documents marked as classified at Mar-a-Lago, Trump allegedly suggested to them they should tell the Justice Department that they had no materials that needed to be turned over, according to the new unsealed federal indictment. 

Prosecutors are pointing to the comments to explain the charges they are bringing, alleging that Trump sought to conceal documents being sought in a federal investigation. 

While the Trump team ultimately turned over some documents in response to the May subpoena, weeks later the FBI conducted a search of Mar-a-Lago and found about 100 more records with classified markings. 

Read an excerpt from the indictment:

A photo of pages from the federal indictment against former US President Donald Trump.

The indictment unsealed Friday against former President Donald Trump details how many documents the FBI seized when it executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, as well as what kind of classification markings the documents had.  

FBI agents seized 27 documents from Trump’s office, according to the indictment. Of those, six were marked “Top Secret,” 18 were marked “Secret” and three were marked “Confidential.” 

A total of 75 documents were seized by FBI agents from a storage room at the estate. Of those, 11 were marked “Top Secret,” 36 were marked “Secret” and 28 were marked “Confidential,” the indictment says. 

Boxes of classified documents are stored inside a bathroom and shower inside the Mar-a-Lago Club’s Lake Room in this photo included in Donald Trump’s federal indictment.

The federal indictment unsealed Friday tracks how boxes were moved throughout Mar-a-Lago after former President Donald Trump moved to his Florida club after he left the White House. 

Boxes were initially stored in a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, prosecutors alleged, before Trump aide Walt Nauta moved some of the boxes to a business center at the estate in March 2021.  

According to the indictment, two people who worked for Trump discussed over text message whether they were able to move boxes holding classified documents.  

Boxes were then allegedly moved to a bathroom. 

In May, Trump allegedly directed that a storage room, which was accessible from several outside entrances — some of which were often kept open — be cleaned out for his boxes. The next month, more than 80 boxes were moved into the storage room.  

Boxes of classified documents are stored inside the Mar-a-Lago Club's White and Gold Ballroom in this photo included in Donald Trump's federal indictment.

Former President Donald Trump allegedly stored classified documents in various places at his Mar-a-Lago estate, including “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room,” according to the newly unsealed indictment.

The document notes that as of January 2021, the Florida estate, which doubles as a private club, “had hundreds of members and was staffed by more than 150 full-time, part-time and temporary employees.”    

The indictment goes on to say some of those boxes were moved by Trump and an aide, Walt Nauta, to the club’s business center.

Take a look at the photos included in the indictment:

Boxes of classified documents are stored inside a bathroom inside the Mar-a-Lago Club's Lake Room.

Classified documents are seen inside the Mar-a-Lago Club's storage room.

The storage room boxes were moved from the Lake Room, according to the indictment.

Boxes of spilled documents are seen on the floor at Mar-a-Lago.

Fallen boxes spill documents onto the floor in this photo included in Donald Trump’s federal indictment.

Trump aide Walt Nauta found classified documents in December 2021 that had spilled out of the boxes onto the floor of the storage room at Mar-a-Lago.  

The documents included intelligence that was releasable only to “Five Eyes” countries – an intelligence-sharing alliance between the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to the indictment. 

In the federal indictment unsealed on Friday, former President Donald Trump faces a total of 37 counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information.

In addition to the willful retention of national defense information charges, the former president is charged with one count each of 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 associate Walt Nauta is also charged in the indictment.

Classified documents that former President Donald Trump stored in boxes at Mar-a-Lago included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the US and foreign countries, including US nuclear programs, according to the indictment. 

It also states that the documents contained information about potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to a military attack – as well as plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.  

According to the indictment, Trump kept documents from several intelligence branches of the US government, including the CIA, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, the Department of Energy and the State Department. 

President Joe Biden speaks to reporters Friday at Nash Community College in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

President Joe Biden said Friday he has not yet spoken to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“I have not spoken to him at all, I’m not going to speak to him— I have no comment on what happened,” he told CNN’s DJ Judd at a community college in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

Some context: CNN had earlier reported that Biden is planning to go about his normal routine as the news unfolds around the indictment of former President Donald Trump – an intentional demonstration of calm and normalcy amid the continuing chaos of his predecessor.

Weighing on the indictment, he and his aides believe, would only lend grist to Trump’s claim that he’s the victim of a political “witch hunt.” Biden doesn’t want to be baited into providing Trump any fuel for his allegations, people familiar with his thinking said. And he remains firmly of the belief that sitting presidents should not comment on legal matters.

Former President Donald Trump is accused of showing classified documents on two occasions to others, according to the indictment unsealed Friday.

One of those occasions was a 2021 meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, when Trump “showed and described a ‘plan of attack’ that Trump said was prepared by the Defense Department” — a meeting CNN has previously reported was captured on an audio recording.  

“Trump also said ‘as president I could have declassified it,’ and ‘Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,’” according to the indictment.  

Trump also showed documents at Bedminster in August or September 2021 to a representative of his political action committee a classified map related to a military operation and “told the representative that he should not be showing it to the representative and that the representative should not get too close.’” 

Former President Donald Trump and his aide Walt Nauta both face a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, according to the federal indictment unsealed moments ago.

CNN previously reported that obstruction of justice could come into play if prosecutors concluded that Trump or his aides intentionally tried to impede their inquiry – by moving boxes around so prosecutors wouldn’t find classified documents, by possibly questioning compliance with subpoenas (including for surveillance tapes that prosecutors believe captured the movement of the boxes), by failing to fully comply with a subpoena, or by falsely swearing that all classified files had been returned.

Who is Walt Nauta? The involvement of Nauta, an aide to Trump, in the movement of boxes of classified material at Trump’s Florida resort had been a subject of scrutiny by investigators. Nauta, with the help of a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, moved the boxes before the FBI executed a search warrant on the Palm Beach property last August. 

The federal indictment of former President Donald Trump and an associate, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents probe has been unsealed, CNN has learned. 

Read it:

The top two Republican leaders in the Senate remain silent a day after former President Donald Trump, the current GOP 2024 frontrunner, was indicted by the federal government.

While the charges have yet to be unsealed, the top two Republicans in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Minority Whip John Thune, have not put out statements.

That’s a stark contrast to the swift reaction among House GOP leaders, who quickly rushed to Trump’s defense.

“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America. It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him. Joe Biden kept classified documents for decades,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy tweeted Thursday night.

House and Senate Republican leaders have diverged for years on how and whether to even respond to Trump’s legal woes. During Trump’s first indictment this spring, McConnell didn’t jump in to defend the former president. When he returned in April after a fall and was asked at a news conference by CNN’s Manu Raju about the indictment, he dodged.

“I may have hit my head, but I didn’t hit it that hard,” McConnell said at the time. “Good try.”

For McConnell, who has not maintained a relationship with Trump since January 6, 2021, the former president could be viewed as a distraction from his ultimate goals of recapturing the Senate. But for McCarthy, an alliance to Trump is an important factor for assuaging those in his right flank, especially at a moment when the House speaker has come under fire for a deal he cut with President Joe Biden on the debt ceiling.

Some in the Senate are already backing Trump, however: The third-ranking GOP senator, John Barrasso of Wyoming, put out a statement Friday, saying, “This indictment certainly looks like an unequal application of justice.”

“Nobody is above the law,” Barrasso tweeted. “Yet it seems like some are.”

Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is also backing the former president. Daines has stayed in touch with Trump as he’s sought to recruit candidates in primaries across the country.

He tweeted Friday: “The two standards of justice under Biden’s DOJ is appalling. When will Hunter Biden be charged?”

Read more here.

Former President Donald Trump is expected to appear in a Miami courthouse on Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump and Trump aide, Walt Nauta, have been indicted in the special counsel’s classified documents probe.

Trump is facing a charge under the Espionage Act, his attorney Jim Trusty said on CNN Thursday, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements. Details from the indictment have not yet been made public.

The former president is expected to appear in a Miami courthouse on Tuesday afternoon. Read more about why the case will unfold in Florida.

Here are the latest developments on Friday:

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts. While we wait on the indictment to be unsealed and his court appearance scheduled for Tuesday, here’s what we know about what happens next:

Trump attorneys Jim Trusty, left, and John Rowley exit the Department of Justice on Monday. They are no longer on the case for Trump.

Former President Trump is planning to add another Florida-based attorney to his legal team following his indictment in the special counsel’s documents investigation in Miami, sources familiar with his thinking tell CNN.

Trump removed two of his top attorneys, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, from the case Friday in a sudden move and said Todd Blanche would take the lead. 

Both subsequently resigned from the legal team entirely. 

Before the sudden shakeup, Trump had been considering adding another attorney in the case when it became clear he was likely to be indicted. He has been on the phone with several Florida-based attorneys in recent days, sources say, and someone will likely join before Tuesday’s appearance.

Lindsey Halligan, who is barred in the state where Trump was indicted, also remains on the team. 

Walt Nauta, an aide to former President Donald Trump, prepares to join Trump on an airplane in Palm Beach, Florida, in March.

Walt Nauta, an aide to former President Donald Trump, was indicted in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents from the Trump White House, according to one source familiar with the matter. 

Nauta’s indictment is the second in the special counsel’s investigation after Trump was indicted on seven counts on Thursday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the Nauta indictment.

An attorney for Nauta declined to comment. Nauta was with Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club this week.

The specific charges against Nauta have not been revealed, so it’s unclear what federal prosecutors are alleging in the case against him.

Nauta’s involvement in the movement of boxes of classified material at Trump’s Florida resort had been a subject of scrutiny of investigators. Nauta, with the help of a maintenance worker at Mar-a-Lago, moved the boxes before the FBI executed a search warrant on the Palm Beach property last August. 

According to court filings last year, the FBI found more than 100 documents marked as classified during the search, which took place weeks after a Trump lawyer signed a statement attesting that the Trump team had complied with a May subpoena seeking production of all documents with classified markings.

Investigators obtained surveillance footage showing Nauta and the worker moving boxes of the classified documents around the resort, CNN previously reported.

Nauta had spoken to investigators repeatedly in the probe, at first telling them he hadn’t handled boxes or sensitive documents at Mar-a-Lago. Once the surveillance footage was turned over, however, Nauta changed his story, CNN previously reported. After changing attorneys, the aide stopped talking to investigators all together last fall.

Trump responded to Nauta’s indictment on his social media Friday, writing, “They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about ‘Trump.’ He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot. The FBI and DOJ are CORRUPT!”

Media tents are set up outside the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Thursday.

Federal officials were scrambling with the logistics of how to prosecute former President Donald Trump in Miami. There had long been an assumption that federal charges against him would be in Washington.

However, it does make some sense for the case to be in Florida: That’s where Trump now lives most of the year, and it is also where the FBI conducted a search of his Mar-a-Lago home and carted away boxes containing classified material.

There are other reasons, too. Trump has dismissed legal setbacks in New York – his company was convicted of tax evasion and he was found liable for sexual abuse – with the argument that New Yorkers are politically opposed to him.

That argument will be more difficult in Florida, a state he won in both 2016 and 2020, although President Joe Biden carried Miami-Dade County.

Todd Blanche, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, is ushered away from a Manhattan courthouse after Trump's arraignment in April.

Former President Donald Trump announced major changes to his legal team on Friday, just hours after learning of his federal indictment.

He will be represented by Todd Blanche, a defense lawyer he hired in April after being indicted in Manhattan, Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The former president also said he plans to hire “a firm to be named later.”

Trump has been in talks with attorneys in Florida about joining the team in recent days, according to a source familiar with the matter.

His attorneys Jim Trusty and John Rowley will not be representing him in the classified documents case in Florida, he added, thanking them for their work and saying they “were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and ‘sick’ group of people.”

In their own statement, Trusty and Rowley said they will no longer represent Trump on either the federal indictment case or the January 6 investigation.

“Now that the case has been filed in Miami, this is a logical moment for us to step aside and let others carry the cases through to completion,” the attorneys said.

The White House repeatedly declined comment Friday on the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump, insisting the matter would play out independently — a concerted strategy to avoid lending any credence to Trump’s claims of political persecution. 

“We are just not going to comment on this case and would refer you to the DOJ, which runs its criminal investigations independently,” deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters aboard Air Force One as President Joe Biden was flying for an official visit to North Carolina.

She would go on to repeat the “no comment” several times as reporters sought reaction to the indictment, which she said Biden and his team learned about from news reports.

A delicate balance: Biden and his aides believe weighing in on Trump’s legal troubles would only help bolster Trump’s claims he’s the victim of a political “witch hunt.” Biden doesn’t want to be baited into providing Trump any fuel for his allegations, people familiar with his thinking say. And he remains firmly of the belief that sitting presidents should not comment on legal matters. 

Those dynamics — already in play when Trump was indicted in New York — are only amplified now that Trump has been handed a federal indictment by Biden’s Justice Department. It’s a situation Biden and his team know they must handle carefully. 

Asked whether the Trump indictment affected the US reputation abroad, Dalton cited democratic principles.

“The rule of law is a bedrock principle of our democracy. And we’re going to have to respect that. And we’re just not going to have comment on this today,” she said.

Former Vice President Mike Pence speaks at a campaign stop in Derry, New Hampshire, on Friday.

Former Vice President and current GOP presidential candidate Mike Pence on Friday said he’s “deeply troubled to see this indictment” of former President Donald Trump, calling it a “sad day.” 

“I had hoped the Department of Justice would see its way clear to resolve these issues with the former president, without moving forward with charges,” he said in a campaign stop in New Hampshire.

Earlier, Pence, who is challenging his former running mate to be the 2024 Republican nominee for president, had called on US Attorney General Merrick Garland to unseal the federal indictment against Trump and address the American public before the end of the day.

Pence also said, “a bedrock principle of American justice” is “every American is innocent until proven guilty.” But he added, “the other principle is no one is above the law.”

He noted that the facts of the case are not known yet, since the indictment has not yet been unsealed.

On June 2, the Justice Department closed its investigation of Pence possibly mishandling classified documents found at his home and did not to seek any charges.  

A view Friday of the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. US Courthouse in Miami.

Federal and local law enforcement officials are working on a plan to deliver Former President Donald Trump to the Miami federal courthouse where he will be formally placed under arrest and processed, according to law enforcement officials briefed on the discussions. 

For security reasons, officials would prefer the surrender and processing to occur in one place — at the federal court complex — to limit any possible threat to his safety. Trump would be placed in the custody of the US Marshals and electronically fingerprinted. 

Justice Department rules prohibit the public release of federal booking photographs produced as part of the processing.

The US Secret Service, which would deliver Trump to the Marshals, is also working on routes to the courthouse and ways to harden access for his entrance and exit.

Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon

Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of Donald Trump, has been initially assigned to oversee the new federal criminal case against the former president in Miami, two sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

Cannon emerged in the public spotlight last year when she was oversaw court proceedings related to the FBI’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Cannon took a number of extraordinary steps in her handling of the dispute over a so-called special master, who reviewed the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, raising eyebrows even among legal experts on the right.

Trump has been indicted in the classified documents probe and is expected to appear in Miami federal court to be read the charges he faces on Tuesday. That is expected to happen before Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who signed the Mar-a-Lago search warrant last August.

ABC first reported the judicial assignments in the criminal case.

Now Cannon, if she remains on the case, would have wide latitude to control timing and evidence in the case and be able to vet the Justice Department’s legal theory.

Cannon’s appointment of the third-party special master was ultimately overturned by a very conservative panel of judges on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. That special master process had put on hold the Justice Department’s investigation into the documents it obtained in the search so that the outside attorney could review the materials for any privilege issues.

Sen. Mitt Romney, the Republican from Utah and frequent critic of former President Donald Trump, had a very different message from most members of his party this morning in the wake of Trump’s indictment.

“These allegations are serious and if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection.”

Jack Smith waits for the start of a court session in the Netherlands in 2020.

Jack Smith, the special counsel announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection, is a long-time prosecutor who has overseen a variety of high-profile cases during a career that spans decades.

Smith’s experience ranges from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing cases against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York City police officers. In recent years, Smith has prosecuted war crimes at The Hague. His career in multiple parts of the Justice Department, as well as in international courts, has allowed him to keep a relatively low-profile in the oftentimes brassy legal industry.

In a statement following his announcement, Smith pledged to conduct the investigations “independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.”

A career prosecutor: Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

Smith began his career as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office in 1994. He worked in the Eastern District of New York in 1999 as an assistant US attorney, where he prosecuted cases including civil rights violations and police officers murdered by gangs, according to the Justice Department.

As a prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York, one of Smith’s biggest and most high-profile cases was prosecuting gang member Ronell Wilson for the murder of two New York City police department detectives during an undercover gun operation in Staten Island.

Wilson was convicted and sentenced to death, the first death penalty case in New York at the time in 50 years, though a judge later found he was ineligible for the death penalty.

Moe Fodeman, who worked with Smith at EDNY, called him “one of the best trial lawyers I have ever seen.”

Read more about Smith’s career here.

A view outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. US Courthouse in Miami on Wednesday.

Law enforcement officials from various agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, are meeting in Miami to discuss security preparations ahead of Donald Trump’s expected court appearance next week. 

A threat assessment of the building has already been completed and found no credible threats, a law enforcement source tells CNN.  

Law enforcement is scrambling to prepare Trump’s court appearance scheduled for Tuesday, and the Justice Department is moving additional resources there, CNN has reported.

The Federal Protective Service, under DHS, provides security for federal government facilities. US Secret Service and US Marshals also play a role. The Secret Service protects the former president, and the Marshals protect courts and judges.

Former President Donald Trump leaves after speaking at a campaign rally in Waco, Texas, in March.

Donald Trump can still run as president while indicted or if he is convicted.

“Nothing stops Trump from running while indicted, or even convicted,” the University of California, Los Angeles law professor Richard Hasen has told CNN.

The Constitution requires only three things of candidates: They must be a natural born citizen, at least 35 years old and a resident of the US for at least 14 years.

There are a few other Constitutional restrictions that can block a person for running for president — but they don’t apple to Trump:

Term limits: The 22nd Amendment forbids anyone who has twice been president — meaning twice been elected or served half of someone else’s term and then won his or her own — from running again. That doesn’t apply to former President Donald Trump since he lost the 2020 election.

Impeachment: If a person is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate of high crimes and misdemeanors, he or she is removed from office and disqualified from serving again. Trump, although twice impeached by the House during his presidency, was also twice acquitted by the Senate.

Disqualification: The 14th Amendment includes a “disqualification clause,” written specifically with an eye toward former Confederate soldiers.

It reads:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

The indictment in New York City with regard to the hush-money payments to an adult-film star has nothing to do with rebellion or insurrection. Federal charges related to classified documents likely do not either.

Potential charges in Fulton County, Georgia, with regard to 2020 election meddling or at the federal level with regard to the January 6, 2021, insurrection could perhaps be construed by some as a form of insurrection. But that is an open question that would have to work its way through the courts. The 2024 election is fast approaching.

Former President Donald Trump is facing a charge under the Espionage Act, his attorney Jim Trusty said on CNN Thursday, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts in the special counsel’s classified documents probe

But this was not the first time Trump was indicted: He already became the first ex-president to be charged with a criminal offense when a Manhattan grand jury indicted him.

But the indictment by the special counsel in the documents case is a far graver affair and more politically sensitive since it comes from the Justice Department.

Trump is facing a charge under the Espionage Act, his attorney Jim Trusty said on CNN Thursday, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements.

While all the exact charges against Trump were not immediately clear, the potential offenses strike at the core of some of the most somber duties of the presidency – including the protection of the country’s most vital secrets. And any allegation of obstruction involves another fundamental role of the public trust that Trump held and to which he aspires in the current campaign – the obligation of a president to uphold the laws.

The current scenario will test whether the US remains a nation of laws. If evidence exists that Trump has indeed committed alleged breaches of the criminal code, a decision not to charge him would shatter the principle that everyone is equal under the law. But some will ask whether the indictment is truly in the national interest given the backlash against democratic and judicial institutions certain to be whipped up by the ex-president.

Secret Service agents stand at the gate of Mar-a-Lago after the FBI issued warrants at the Palm Beach, Florida, estate, in August 2022.

The federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents led to Thursday’s indictment. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

The indictment hasn’t been unsealed yet, so details of the charges aren’t publicly available. But the investigation – led by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith – revolves around sensitive government papers that Trump held onto after his White House term ended in January 2021. The special counsel has also examined whether Trump or his aides obstructed the investigation.

Here’s a timeline of the important developments in the blockbuster investigation.

May 2021: An official from the National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team after realizing that several important documents weren’t handed over before Trump left the White House. The missing documents include some of Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as the map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump infamously altered with a sharpie pen.

July 2021: In a taped conversation, Trump acknowledges that he still has a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack against Iran, according to CNN reporting. This indicates that Trump understood that he retained classified material after leaving the White House. The special counsel later obtained this audiotape, a key piece of evidence in his inquiry.

Fall 2021: NARA grows frustrated with the slow pace of document turnover after several months of conversations with the Trump team.

January 18, 2022: After months of discussions with Trump’s team, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump White House records from Mar-a-Lago.

February 9, 2022: NARA asks the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s handling of White House records and whether he violated the Presidential Records Act and other laws related to classified information. The Presidential Records Act requires all records created by a sitting president to be turned over to the National Archives at the end of their administration.

April 7, 2022: NARA publicly acknowledges for the first time that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.

May 11, 2022: The Justice Department subpoenas Trump, demanding all documents with classification markings that are still at Mar-a-Lago.

June 3, 2022: Federal investigators, including a top Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-a-Lago to deal with the subpoena for remaining classified documents. Trump lawyer Christina Bobb signs a sworn affidavit inaccurately asserting that there aren’t any more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

August 8, 2022: The FBI executes a court-approved search warrant at Mar-a-Lago – a major escalation of the investigation. Federal agents found more than 100 additional classified documents at the property. The search was the first time in American history that a former president’s home was searched as part of a criminal investigation.

August 12, 2022: Federal Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approves the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant and its property receipt, at the Justice Department’s request and after Trump’s lawyers agree to the release. The warrant reveals the Justice Department is looking into possible violations of the Espionage Act, obstruction of justice and criminal handling of government records, as part of its investigation.

August 22, 2022: Trump files a federal lawsuit seeking the appointment of a third-party attorney known as a “special master” to independently review the materials that the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago. This was granted on September 5, 2022, and senior Judge Raymond Dearie was appointed on September 15, 2022, to be the special master.

November 18, 2022: Special counsel Jack Smith is appointed to take over the investigation.

Spring 2023: A string of Trump employees and aides testify before the special counsel’s grand jury in Washington, DC.

March 25, 2023: Evan Corcoran, the lead Trump attorney, testifies before the grand jury in Washington, DC. He later recused himself from handling the Mar-a-Lago matter.

June 2023: The first public indications emerge that the special counsel is using a second grand jury in Miami to gather evidence. Multiple witnesses testify in front of the Miami-based panel, CNN reported.

June 7, 2023: News outlets report that the Justice Department recently sent a “target letter” to Trump, formally notifying him that he’s a target of the investigation into potential mishandling of classified documents.

June 8, 2023: News outlets report that Trump has been indicted in connection with the classified documents investigation. Trump also says in a social media post that the Justice Department informed his attorneys that he was indicted – and called the case a “hoax.”

CNN’s Jeremy Herb and Casey Gannon contributed to this report.

During a news conference on Thursday, US President Joe Biden said: “You’ll notice, I have never once — not one single time — suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do on whether to bring any charges or not bring any charges. I’m honest.”

The last time former President Donald Trump was indicted, Joe Biden left the White House the next day intent on going about his schedule without wading into the matter.

As Trump is indicted a second time, President Joe Biden is planning to do the same – an intentional demonstration of calm and normalcy amid the continuing chaos of his predecessor.

That’s because he and his aides believe doing so would only lend grist to Trump’s claim that he’s the victim of a political “witch hunt.” Biden doesn’t want to be baited into providing Trump any fuel for his allegations, people familiar with his thinking said. And he remains firmly of the belief that sitting presidents should not comment on legal matters.

It’s a situation Biden and his team know they must handle carefully.

“You’ll notice, I have never once – not one single time – suggested to the Justice Department what they should do or not do on whether to bring any charges or not bring any charges. I’m honest,” Biden said at a news conference Thursday.

Biden is hoping to project an air of competence and authority as a contrast to the chaos that has accompanied Trump for years. That comparison could hardly be starker this week.

Then-President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Toledo, Ohio, in 2020.

Former President Donald Trump acknowledged on tape in a 2021 meeting that he had retained “secret” military information that he had not declassified, according to a transcript of the audio recording obtained by CNN.

“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” Trump says, according to the transcript.

CNN obtained the transcript of a portion of the meeting where Trump is discussing a classified Pentagon document about attacking Iran. In the audio recording, which CNN previously reported was obtained by prosecutors, Trump says that he did not declassify the document he’s referencing, according to the transcript.

Trump was indicted Thursday on seven counts in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents. Details from the indictment have not been made public, so it unknown whether any of the seven counts refer to the recorded 2021 meeting. Still, the tape is significant because it shows that Trump had an understanding the records he had with him at Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House remained classified.

Publicly, Trump has claimed that all the documents he brought with him to his Florida residence are declassified, while he’s railed against the special counsel’s investigation as a political witch hunt attempting to interfere with his 2024 presidential campaign.

Read more here.

Former President Donald Trump reacts to his indictment during a video posted to Truth Social.

Before the Department of Justice had officially informed Donald Trump of the federal indictment, the former president and his team had already pre-recorded a video response in anticipation, sources tell CNN. 

Shortly after learning that he had been charged in the special counsel’s classified documents probe, Trump posted the video on Truth Social, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell CNN. 

The sources said they had planned to get ahead of the news of the indictment — an apparent effort to control the news cycle as much as possible once charges were announced, a move we’ve seen Trump implement repeatedly while president.

One source added that we should expect to hear more from Trump and his team in the coming days, though it has still not been decided whether the former president will deliver live remarks prior to his pre-planned campaign stops in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday. Another source familiar with the planning said the team was still determining if and when Trump would address this publicly. 

Multiple sources have said that any public appearance by Trump is likely to mirror what was seen after the Manhattan indictment, when the former president gave remarks at his Mar-a-Lago resort after his arraignment.

Trump attorney Jim Trusty appears on CNN on Thursday night.

Donald Trump’s attorney Jim Trusty confirmed Thursday night that the former president has been charged with seven counts – and revealed that the charges “break out from an Espionage Act charge.”

Trusty called the espionage charge “ludicrous,” and added that there are also “several obstruction-based-type charges and then false statement charges.”

He said his team did not get a copy of the indictment but instead received a summons via email. Trusty refused to reveal when his team received the initial letter from the Justice Department that listed Trump as a target of their investigation.

He confirmed that Trump will appear in court Tuesday but would not say which attorneys will be present with the former president.

Former President Donald Trump attends a rally in Waco, Texas, in March.

Former President Donald Trump has been indicted in the special counsel’s classified documents probe, a stunning development that marks the first time a former president has faced federal charges.

The federal indictment is the second time that Trump has been charged criminally this year. In April, the Manhattan district attorney charged Trump with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

But the special counsel indictment marks a new and more perilous legal phase for Trump, who is running for president again in 2024 while facing criminal charges in two jurisdictions – and with two additional investigations into his conduct still underway.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s going on in Florida and what we know about the fast-developing situation: 

You can read more here, including details about the pair of grand juries involved in the case, and the specific laws Trump may have violated.

CNN’s Paula Reid, Kristen Holmes, Jeremy Herb and Evan Perez contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump sits in a Manhattan courtroom with his defense team in April.

Former President Donald Trump was charged in a Manhattan criminal court with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his role in a hush money payment scheme involving adult film actress Stormy Daniels late in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The former president surrendered and was placed under arrest on April 4, before he was arraigned in a historic and unprecedented court appearance, at which he pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors, led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, accuse Trump of falsifying business records with the intent to conceal illegal conduct connected to his 2016 presidential campaign.

The indictment has sent shockwaves across the country, pushing the American political system – which has never seen one of its ex-leaders confronted with criminal charges, let alone while running again for president – into uncharted waters.

The $130,000 payment was paid by former Trump attorney and fixer Michael Cohen to Daniels to remain quiet about an alleged affair between Daniels and Trump years earlier.Trump has denied having an affair with Daniels and says the probe by Bragg, a Democrat, is politically motivated. Trump is now seeking to move the case to federal court.

Other legal woes: Also in Manhattan, a federal jury found Trump sexually abused former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and awarded her about $5 million in the battery and defamation civil case.

In Atlanta, a select grand jury has investigated the efforts by Trump and allies to overturn his election loss in Georgia in 2020.

Read about additional Trump legal challenges here.

This image, contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice last year and partially redacted by the source, shows documents seized during the FBI search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.

Special counsel Jack Smith has been overseeing the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s resort and into parts of the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

The Justice Department investigation has looked into whether documents from the Trump White House were illegally mishandled when they were taken to Mar-a-Lago in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury has interviewed potential witnesses regarding how Trump handled the documents.

Agents first subpoenaed the Trump Organization for Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage last summer, before the August search by the FBI. But as more classified documents were found through the end of last year, investigators sought more surveillance footage from the Trump Organization, sources tell CNN.

That included an additional subpoena after the FBI search in August and a request from the Justice Department for the Trump Organization to preserve additional footage in late October, according to one of the sources.

The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, has previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN.

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz, Jeremy Herb and Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting to this post.