You won’t believe what just happened with Donald Trump and classified documents- 37 counts charged !

Federal prosecutors unveiled an indictment on Friday charging Donald Trump with 37 counts, accusing the former US president of repeatedly lying and obfuscating to illegally keep some of the government’s most sensitive national security secrets. .

Most of the charges directly accuse Trump of improperly retaining highly classified documents — many of which were so sensitive they were marked for “special handling” or barred from disclosure to non-Americans — in the face of lawful requests from federal authorities. .

But the indictment also detailed the elaborate subterfuge Trump undertook to trick investigators trying to recover dozens of files, including moving boxes to rooms all over his Mar-a-Lago estate where even his own lawyers would not find them. That effort led to charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carry a maximum prison sentence of 20 years each.

The indictment, brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, marks the first time in US history that a former president has faced federal criminal charges.

“We have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone,” Smith said on Friday, just after the indictment was released. He encouraged the public to read the indictment in its entirety “to understand the extent and gravity of the crimes charged.”

The court file includes a list of 31 documents that Asset allegedly hidden, including one on “a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities” and another on “a foreign country’s support for terrorist acts”.

But a large part of the charge focuses on Trump’s cover-up efforts after leaving office in January 2021, which included storing boxes in a Mar-a-Lago shower and suggesting his own attorney ‘extract’ particularly sensitive documents from files handed over to government investigators.

Prosecutors also produced a transcript of an audiotape in which Trump describes a US “plan of attack” on a foreign country to visiting researchers, admitting that “as president, I could have declassified it” but “Now I can not”. He added: ‘It’s still a secret’, suggesting he was aware he was improperly sharing classified intelligence.

The indictment also charged Waltine Nauta, a former White House valet who worked as an aide to Trump, as an alleged co-conspirator. Nauta is accused of having moved boxes of documents in the Mar-a-Lago estate at the request of the former president. The couple were summoned to a federal courthouse in Miami, Florida on Tuesday.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump called Smith “disturbed” and said he had “provided [the records] openly.” He also said the accusations were politically motivated. Nauta could not immediately be reached for comment.

The indictment was unsealed shortly after two of Trump’s top lawyers abruptly withdrew from his legal team. The departure of Jim Trusty and John Rowley throws his defense into uncertainty as several new rivals challenge him for the Republican presidential nomination.

Although Trump remains the favorite for his party’s 2024 nod, the new charges are his second criminal indictment in as many months, and a third is expected from local prosecutors in Georgia this summer. A growing number of Republicans believe the weight of legal challenges could leave him vulnerable to the expanding field of presidential challengers.

Capitol Hill Republicans, however, came to his defense and Asset is counting on primary voters to oppose the charges as evidence of politically motivated persecution promoted by Democrats and the Joe Biden administration. Senior Republicans, including Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker of the United States House, and Ron DeSantisthe Florida governor and Trump’s main rival in 2024, sued the Justice Department over the indictment.

Trump said his two attorneys would be replaced by Todd Blanche, who is already on his legal team, and a “firm to be named later.”

In a statement on Friday, Trusty and Rowley said: “It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him, and we know he will be vindicated.”

The ex-president repeated on Friday that he was “authorized to” take the documents under the law on the presidential archives. But the law says that official presidential documents belong to the United States, not the president, and must be kept in a federal repository.

In addition to the classified documents case, Smith is also handling an investigation into Trump’s alleged interference in the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden.

Fani Willis, the Fulton County Attorney in Georgia, is also investigating the 2020 election. Combined with Smith’s investigation into the matter, these are the biggest legal threats Trump faces, according to legal experts.

The indictment in the documents case comes after Trump earlier this year pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business documents in a case brought by the Manhattan District Attorney, the first time that a current or former US president has been criminally charged. These charges were brought under New York State law.