Bragging, lies, disclosure of the Five Eyes: what prosecutors say happened in Mar-a-Lago

Boxes of documents next to a toilet in Mar-a-Lago Photo: US Department of Justice/Getty

Mr Trump went further than less by implying to their legal team that they are withholding or destroying documents that the government requested under the subpoena.

Undeterred, one of the lawyers informed the former president that he would return on June 2, 2022, to search the Mar -A. -Lago's vault for classified documents to pass on to the FBI.

Apparently determined to keep the secret, Trump hired Walt Nauta to help him fool both his lawyers and the FBI.

< p>Mr. Nauta served as Trump's valet at the White House and became his «bodyguard». ” after he left his post.

The indictment states that at Trump's direction, Mr. Nauta removed «approximately 64 boxes» of documents from storage prior to the June 2 search of the lawyer.

The former president's lawyers then signed a document certifying that a «thorough search» had been carried out. » documents.
Prosecutions say Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta, who has also been charged, knew it was a lie.

It looks like the FBI had reason to believe that Mr. Trump had more. His agents obtained a warrant and ransacked Mar-a-Lago in August 2022. They found dozens more boxes containing 102 more classified documents.

On Friday, the former president was indicted on 37 counts of for documents. Photo: US Department of Justice/Getty

The prosecution suggests that Mr. Trump had a remarkably cavalier attitude towards classified information, and suggests that this may have consequences for America's closest allies.

According to the indictment, at some point, intelligence relating to the Five Eyes intelligence network between the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand spilled onto the floor of a warehouse.

Mr. Nauta texted another Trump associate with photos of documents that contained classified information.

The indictment also states that Mr. Trump was filmed demonstrating a «totally confidential» «plan of attack» to the writer and some of his staff at his New Jersey golf club in 2021, boasting that the information «up to is still a secret.»

During another meeting, Mr. Trump showed a «secret map linked to a military operation» to a member of his political action committee, the main arm of his political fundraising movement.

How he did it, he admitted that he «shouldn't show it» to a person, prosecutors said.

With wry irony, prosecutors note how Mr. Trump, as president in 2017, called the leak of classified information «an illegal process and that those involved “should be ashamed of themselves.”

In the words of Maggie Haberman, Trump’s seasoned New York Times reporter, “Every aspect of the indictment reveals a historical element of Trump’s personality: his boasting, his belief that everything belongs to him, that he puts his advisers at a disadvantage, his admiration for people who evade verification.”