June 9, 2023 Latest on federal indictment against Donald Trump

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:

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 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. 

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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?”

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