The Classified Documents Case
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida
Federal prosecutors, led by special counsel Jack Smith, have accused Trump of taking highly sensitive national security documents when he left the White House in January 2021. He stashed those documents haphazardly throughout his Mar-a-Lago resort and obstructed the government’s repeated attempts to retrieve them, prosecutors allege. On at least two occasions, Trump showed classified documents to individuals who were not authorized to view them, prosecutors say. During one of those episodes — which was audio-recorded — Trump allegedly displayed a top-secret military plan of attack while telling visitors, “As president I could have declassified it” but “now I can’t,” adding that the document he was showing them was “still a secret.”
Status
In early 2022, the Justice Department opened an investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents after his presidency. In June 2022, a Trump lawyer avowed that Trump had turned over all classified records, but two months later, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and seized 102 documents with classified markings. Smith was appointed in November 2022 to lead the investigation, and for months, a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., reviewed evidence and heard testimony — including testimony from some of Trump’s own lawyers.
Smith’s team then sought an indictment from a grand jury in Florida. On June 9, 2023, that indictment was unsealed, charging Trump with 37 felonies and his longtime aide, Walt Nauta, with six felonies. Trump pleaded not guilty.
On July 27, 2023, Smith’s team unveiled a revised indictment, known as a “superseding” indictment, adding three new felony charges against Trump and two new felony charges against Nauta. The superseding indictment also added a third defendant: Carlos De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago employee who was charged with four felonies. The superseding indictment included new allegations that Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira sought to destroy security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago after investigators tried to obtain the footage.
A trial is scheduled for May 20, 2024, in Fort Pierce, Florida, but Judge Aileen Cannon is widely expected to postpone it.
Charges
The Espionage Act makes it a crime to retain records containing sensitive national security information. The first 32 counts against Trump arise from 32 specific documents that he allegedly hoarded at Mar-a-Lago and refused to give back, even though he was no longer entitled to possess them after his presidency. Of the 32 documents, 31 were marked classified, and many concerned foreign military capabilities, military activities or nuclear weapons, according to the indictment. The remaining eight felony counts arise from Trump’s alleged efforts to stymie the investigation, including directing Nauta to move boxes in the hope that neither Trump’s own lawyer nor the FBI would discover some of the classified documents.
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Many legal experts, including conservatives, have described Smith’s indictment as laying out an exceptionally persuasive case. It contains evidence from Trump’s own statements — including one caught on tape — that he knew he was not authorized to retain classified material but did so anyway. Evidence of obstruction — including instructing his aides to move boxes around or destroy security footage, and apparently suggesting to his lawyer that he conceal documents from the FBI — is similarly compelling.
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Trump seems to have publicly admitted that he knowingly held onto the documents after he left the White House. During a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said he “took the documents” because he was “allowed to.”
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The Presidential Records Act makes clear that presidential documents are property of the federal government, not an outgoing president. And multiple federal laws tightly control how classified documents can be viewed and stored. Smith has pointed to a 2009 executive order as pivotal, saying Trump would have required a written waiver of the order’s “need-to-know requirement” for access to classified information after his term in office.
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​​While he was president, Trump had broad authority to declassify documents. If Trump could show that he declassified the records at issue before he left the White House, he may be able to undermine the charges. To date, however, there is no evidence that Trump did so.
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In a series of motions to dismiss, Trump’s lawyers challenged the charges on a variety of fronts. They argued, for instance, that because many of the documents were transported to Mar-a-Lago before Trump’s term ended in January 2021, he implicitly designated them as “personal records,” beyond the scope of the Presidential Records Act. They also alleged that the prosecution was politically motivated and that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional.
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The prosecution may have received an unlucky break when the case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has a history of issuing rulings that are highly favorable to Trump. She has broad authority over both the pace of the proceedings and a slew of pretrial litigation on the admissibility of evidence and other issues.
Prosecution
Jack Smith
Special counsel
Trump’s legal team
Todd Blanche
Christopher Kise
Key players
Evan Corcoran
Trump lawyer
Corcoran took detailed notes about his interactions with Trump during the documents probe. A judge ordered Corcoran to turn over the notes to prosecutors under the so-called crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. The notes became crucial evidence to support the indictment.
Walt Nauta
Trump aide and co-defendant
Nauta is Trump’s longtime “body man.” Prosecutors say he became Trump’s co-conspirator in efforts to hide the classified documents.
Carlos De Oliveira
Mar-a-Lago property manager and co-defendant
Prosecutors say De Oliveira tried to delete security camera footage after investigators sought the footage from Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors say he told another Mar-a-Lago employee that “the boss” wanted the video server deleted.
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