Nuke docs, Pentagon’s ‘plan of attack’: What Trump took from White House

Donald Trump has been accused of risking national security by storing sensitive documents, including those on nuclear capabilities and the Pentagon’s “plan of attack”, in his Florida estate. This comes to light after United States’ prosecutors unsealed a 37-count indictment against the former United States president on Friday (9 June).

According to the Justice Department, Trump took more than 300 classified government documents in cardboard boxes to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2021.

What has the indictment revealed, what are the charges against him and what has the Republican said? Let’s take a closer look.

Boxes in ballroom, bathroom

Trump stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and his golf club in New Jersey, as per the indictment.

It alleges that investigators found the documents in a “ballroom, a bathroom and shower, and office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”.

Even though secret documents were at the estate, “tens of thousands of members and guests” visited Mar-a-Lago between January 2021 and August 2022, reported Associated Press (AP) citing the indictment.

Prosecutors also allege that Trump “showed classified documents on US military operations and plans to people not cleared to see them at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club” on at least two occasions, according to AFP.

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The indictment details a July 2021 meeting in Bedminster in which he boasted about having held onto a classified document prepared by the military about a potential attack on another country.

“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” the indictment quotes him as saying, citing an audio recording. He also said he could have declassified the document but “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,” according to the indictment.

The indictment further claims that, for a two-month period between January and 15 March 2021, some of Trump’s boxes were stored in one of Mar-a-Lago’s gilded ballrooms.

“The classified documents Trump stored in the boxes included information regarding defence and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries,” the indictment said.

Other records dealt with US nuclear programs and potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to military attack along with plans for retaliation, it said.

“The unauthorised disclosure of these classified documents could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources,” reads the indictment.

‘We don’t have anything here’

According to the prosecutors, after the Justice Department issued a subpoena for the records in May 2022, Trump asked his own lawyers if he could defy the request and said words to the effect of, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” one of his lawyers described him as saying.

But before his own lawyer searched the property for classified records, the indictment says, Trump directed aides to remove from the Mar-a-Lago storage room boxes of documents so that they would not be found during the search and therefore handed over to the government.

Weeks later, when Justice Department officials arrived at Mar-a-Lago to collect the records, they were handed a folder with only 38 documents and an untrue letter attesting that all documents responsive to the subpoena had been turned over.

That day, even as Trump assured investigators that he was “an open book,” aides loaded several of Trump’s boxes onto a plane bound for Bedminster, the indictment alleges.

However, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) obtained a search warrant and returned in AugustONLY to recover more than 100 additional documents.

ALSO READ: The classified documents case and Donald Trump’s other legal troubles

Charges against Trump

Trump faces 37 felony counts — 31 pertaining to the willful retention of national defence information, the balance relating to alleged conspiracy, obstruction and false statements — that could result in a substantial prison sentence in the event of a conviction.

Named as a co-conspirator, the former US president’s personal aide, Walt Nauta, was charged with six counts for helping Trump hide documents, which were kept at various locations in Mar-a-Lago, according to the indictment.

Trump, who is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday for the first hearing in the case.

A trial is not expected to begin for several months and there is nothing to prevent Trump from pursuing a second term in the White House while facing charges.

ALSO READ: Secret Documents Case: The charges that could spell doom for Donald Trump

‘Boxes Hoax’

Trump announced on his Truth Social platform Thursday that he had been indicted by the “corrupt Biden Administration” in what he called the “Boxes Hoax.”

In a defiant video, Trump declared his innocence and framed the indictment as election interference by a Justice Department “weaponised” by President Joe Biden.

“They come after me because now we’re leading in the polls again by a lot against Biden,” Trump claimed.

“Nobody said I wasn’t allowed to look at the personal records that I brought with me from the White House. There’s nothing wrong with that,” the former US president said in the post.

With inputs from AP and AFP 

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