Former President Trump Indicted for Keeping Secret Documents after Leaving White House

Former US Republican President Donald Trump endangered the United States by keeping secret documents, including military and nuclear secrets, after leaving the White House, as revealed in a historic indictment published Friday.

“The laws in the United States apply to everyone,” said the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Jack Smith, when announcing the indictment in a brief televised address.

He added that the laws that “protect information related to national defense are necessary (…) and violating them endangers our country,” calling for a “quick trial” of the Republican billionaire.

Trump announced Thursday that the federal judiciary had indicted him for dealing with documents from the White House archives, in a precedent for a former US president, saying he was summoned to a court in Miami on Tuesday.

Trump asserted that he was “innocent”, considering that he was the victim of a plot orchestrated by his Democratic opponents to impede his access to the White House, which he hopes to return to in 2024.

Trump is supposed to appear in court in Miami at 3:00 pm local time on Tuesday for the first hearing in the case.

And US media reported that he initially entrusted the case to Eileen Cannon (42 years), a judge appointed by Trump and who issued rulings in his favor during the court review of documents that were confiscated when the former president’s home in Mar-a-Lago was raided in August 2022.

The trial is unlikely to begin months before, and there is nothing to prevent Trump from serving a second term in the White House while he faces the charges.

The indictment, which was published on Friday, includes 37 charges, including “illegal retention of information related to national security,” “obstructing the work of the judiciary,” and providing “false testimony.”

Trump commented on his “Truth Social” network, “This is no longer America!”, stressing that he “never had anything to hide.”

behind the toilet

In the United States, the Presidents Act requires all electronic, paper, and other business documents to be sent to the National Archives. Another law relating to espionage prohibits keeping state secrets in unauthorized and unsafe places.

When he left the White House in January 2021 to settle into his lavish Mar-a-Lago residence, Trump took boxes full of classified files with him.

According to the indictment, the boxes were kept stacked in a ballroom before being moved to a “storage room” accessible from the swimming pool. There, documents bearing the words “Top Secret” were seen lying on the ground.

The indictment includes a photo showing piles of boxes behind a toilet in a large bathroom.

In January 2022, after repeated requests, Trump agreed to return 15 boxes containing more than 200 classified documents. His lawyers confirmed in a letter afterwards that there was no other document.

But after examining the documents, the FBI saw that not everything had been returned and that he still kept a large number of papers at his club in Palm Beach.

On August 2nd, elements of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided the house and confiscated about thirty other boxes containing 11,000 documents, some of which were very sensitive about Iran or China.

According to the indictment, the documents Trump took included “information related to the defense capabilities of the United States and foreign countries, and the US nuclear programs.” This information also relates to “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies in the event of a military attack,” as well as “plans for a possible response to a foreign attack.”

Six charges were brought against a former Trump aide, Walt Nauta, who is accused of transporting cardboard boxes at the request of the former president, to conceal documents.