The Justice Department on Thursday took the legally and politically momentous step of lodging federal criminal charges against former President Donald J. Trump, accusing him of mishandling classified documents he kept upon leaving office and then obstructing the government’s efforts to reclaim them.
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The charges against him include willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
The Justice Department made no comment and did not immediately make the indictment public.
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Trump confirmed on his social media platform that he had been indicted.
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The former president added that he was scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Miami at 3 p.m. on Tuesday.
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Mr. Trump remains under investigation by Mr. Smith’s office for his wide-ranging efforts to retain power after his election loss in 2020, and how those efforts led to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob. He is also being scrutinized for potential election interference by the district attorney’s office in Fulton County, Ga.
NYT
UPDATE 06/09/2023: LOL
Posting on Truth Social, Trump wrote:
For purposes of fighting the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time, now moving to the Florida Courts, I will be represented by Todd Blanche, Esq., and a firm to be named later. I want to thank Jim Trusty and John Rowley for their work, but they were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and “sick” group of people, the likes of which has not been seen before. We will be announcing additional lawyers in the coming days. When will Joe Biden be Indicted for his many crimes against our Nation? MAGA!
Guardian
Donald Trump's lawyers Jim Trusty and John Rowley have delivered their resignations to the former president, the pair confirmed to NPR in an emailed statement.
"We will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation," they wrote. "It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him and we know he will be vindicated in his battle against the Biden Administration's partisan weaponization of the American justice system."
NPR
Personally, I think he already ruined it by representing Trump at all.
UPDATE 01:00 pm:
The charges:
The 49-page indictment gave the clearest picture yet of the files that Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept documents concerning “United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
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In a particularly stinging portion of the indictment, Trump’s own words about the importance of protecting classified documents are recited. He said, for example, that “we can’t have someone in the Oval Office who doesn’t understand the meaning of the word confidential or classified.” He also said, “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. No one will be above the law.”
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It is unusual for prosecutors to unseal an indictment before a defendant shows up in court for an initial appearance. But the decision to release the document in this case came as Mr. Trump and his allies had been aggressively attacking the investigation and, in the view of federal law enforcement officials, distorting elements of the case.
NYT
The IndictmentFormer President Donald J. Trump declared at a meeting in July 2021, six months after leaving the White House, that a document in front of him was “classified” and “highly confidential.”
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The transcript demonstrates that Mr. Trump was not only aware he had sensitive material, but had it with him at his club at Bedminster, N.J., where the meeting took place, and that he knew he no longer had the power to declassify material.
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At the time, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom Mr. Trump had appointed, had been a subject of multiple media portraits describing him as pressing back against an erratic president in the final months of the presidency.
Mr. Trump went on a tear about General Milley.
“Isn’t it amazing, I have a big pile of papers,” Mr. Trump said at one point. Papers could be heard rustling, and then Mr. Trump began appearing to point to a specific document, saying, “Look, this was him.” At another point he said, “This was the Defense Department and him.”
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He described something in front of him as “like, highly confidential,” and maintained it was really General Milley who wanted to attack Iran (in fact, General Milley cautioned against such a move).
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Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly asserted that, while still in office, he had declassified all the material he took with him from the White House (though the charges may not rely on whether anything was classified). But his assertion appeared to be undercut by the recording.
“As president, I could have declassified them, now I can’t,” Mr. Trump was recorded saying, according to the person familiar with its contents. He then reiterated something was “classified” as he and one of the women in the room talked over each other, according to the person familiar with its contents.
“Isn’t that interesting? It’s so cool,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “You probably almost didn’t believe me, but now you believe me.”
NYT
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