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   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Indictment Says Trump Lied, Schemed To Keep Highly Classified Secrets   
      
   The former president faces 37 criminal charges. His longtime valet, Walt   
   Nauta, faces six charges.   
   By Devlin Barrett   
      
      
   Former president Donald Trump stashed sensitive intelligence secrets in a   
   bathroom, his bedroom and a ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, according to a   
   scathing 49-page indictment unsealed Friday against him and a loyal   
   servant who is accused of lying to cover up his boss’s alleged crimes.   
      
   The grand jury indictment tells a story of hubris and hypocrisy,   
   describing a wealthy former president living among neck-high stacks of   
   boxes with classified documents scattered inside them, sometimes literally   
   spilling out of their containers. In the prosecutors’ telling, neither   
   Trump nor any of his aides or lawyers appeared bothered by the sprawl of   
   sensitive papers until government agents came calling. Then, the former   
   commander in chief allegedly set out to hide some of what he had.   
      
   See the next steps after Trump’s classified documents indictment   
      
   The document, complete with color photographs and witness accounts of   
   breathtaking criminal conduct, lays down a marker for a legal and   
   political battle to come that could reshape the 2024 presidential race,   
   the politics of national security, and the public’s perception of the   
   Justice Department and the 45th president of the United States.   
      
   “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”   
   Trump allegedly asked when his lawyers told him in May 2022 that they had   
   to comply with a grand jury subpoena seeking the return of any documents   
   marked classified. In that same conversation, he praised a lawyer for   
   Hillary Clinton for what he claimed was the act of deleting 30,000 of her   
   emails when she was in government.   
      
   “He did a great job,” Trump allegedly said.   
   This image, contained in the indictment, shows boxes of records that had   
   fallen over in a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, with their contents spilling   
   onto the floor. The indictment said one of the boxes contained highly   
   classified material, which is not shown in the photo. (Department of   
   Justice/AP)   
      
   Such private comments stand in stark contrast to Trump’s public statements   
   as a 2016 candidate and as president about the importance of protecting   
   classified information. As recounted in the indictment, Trump often used   
   the issue as a rhetorical dagger against Clinton, declaring in September   
   2016 that “one of the first things we must do is enforce all   
   classification rules and to enforce all laws relating to the handling of   
   classified information.”   
      
   In total, Trump faces 37 separate counts, 31 of them for alleged willful   
   retention of national defense information. Each of those 31 counts   
   represents a different classified document he allegedly withheld — 21 that   
   were discovered when the FBI searched the property last August, and 10   
   that were turned over to the FBI in a sealed envelope two months earlier.   
      
   Trump was not charged with a crime for every secret document he allegedly   
   possessed, as prosecutors try to navigate the tricky legal and   
   intelligence issues surrounding a public trial involving government   
   secrets. He was not charged with mishandling any of the classified   
   documents that he returned to the National Archives and Records   
   Administration in early 2022 — a telling sign that if he had turned over   
   what authorities had sought, the matter might never have been a criminal   
   case.   
      
   Now, if convicted, Trump potentially faces decades in federal prison.   
      
   He is again running for president and currently leads a crowded field of   
   Republican candidates.   
      
   The secret documents the FBI recovered from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and   
   private club in South Florida, included one about the “nuclear weaponry of   
   the United States” and another describing the “nuclear capabilities of a   
   foreign country,” according to the indictment. The indictment offers only   
   broad descriptions of the sensitive topics: a White House intelligence   
   briefing from 2018, communications with a foreign leader, documents   
   concerning operations against U.S. forces and others from January and   
   March 2020, and military activities and attacks by foreign countries.   
      
   “Our laws that protect national defense information are critical for the   
   safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced,” said   
   special counsel Jack Smith, who was tapped in November to take charge of   
   the politically fraught investigation and spoke publicly about it for the   
   first time Friday afternoon, after the indictment was unsealed.   
   “Violations of those laws put our country at risk.”   
      
   Trump, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, preempted the unsealing of   
   the indictment by announcing it himself Thursday night. He attacked Smith   
   on social media Friday, calling him a “deranged ‘psycho’ that shouldn’t be   
   involved in any case having to do with ‘Justice.’”   
      
   Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, struck a far more sober tone,   
   telling reporters, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they   
   apply to everyone.”   
   See Jack Smith’s full statement on Trump’s indictment   
   2:35   
   Special counsel Jack Smith delivered a statement on former president   
   Donald Trump's indictment and said his team will "seek a speedy trial."   
   (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Tom Brenner/The Washington Post)   
      
   The charges were filed in Miami federal court, where Trump and his   
   longtime valet, Waltine “Walt” Nauta, are expected to appear in court   
   Tuesday afternoon.   
      
   In addition to the willful-retention charges Trump faces, he and Nauta are   
   jointly charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a   
   document, concealing a document and scheming to conceal. They are   
   separately charged with making false statements or causing false   
   statements to be made to authorities.   
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   A lawyer for Nauta, who faces six counts in all, declined to comment.   
      
   Smith signaled that prosecutors would try to move quickly to bring the   
   case to trial.   
      
   The timing will be critical, because Trump faces a March trial in   
   Manhattan in an unrelated case in which he is accused of arranging illegal   
   hush money payments to women during his 2016 presidential campaign.   
   Separately, state prosecutors in Georgia are considering filing charges   
   this summer over Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result, and   
   Smith is investigating those efforts on the federal level. And any trial   
   in mid-2024 could crash up against the major parties’ nominating   
   conventions.   
   Press Enter to skip to end of carousel   
   More on the Mar-a-Lago case   
   Trump arraigned, pleads not guilty to 37 classified documents charges   
   Trump arraigned, pleads not guilty to 37 classified documents charges   
      
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