By This has been CNBC’s live blog covering the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has become the first U.S. president, former or otherwise, to be indicted on federal criminal charges.
The 37-count indictment against him was made public Friday afternoon, a day after Trump was charged in the case in U.S. District Court in Miami.
“Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice,” special counsel Jack Smith said in brief remarks Friday. “I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged.”
Follow our live Tuesday coverage of Donald Trump’s indictment and arraignment in the classified documents case.
He added: “The men and women of the United States intelligence community and our Armed Forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people.”
Thirty-one counts charge that Trump willfully retained national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act. The other six allege that Trump caused false statements to be made, concealed documents from investigators, obstructed justice and allegedly conspired to do these things.
Trump, the leading contender for the GOP presidential nomination next year, is scheduled to appear Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Miami. He is still set to hold a previously scheduled birthday eve fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Tuesday night, the Trump campaign confirmed to NBC News.
Trump had kept reams of classified documents in boxes at his Mar-a-Lago resort in South Florida until federal agents raided it last year and seized the records.
The ex-president said he’s innocent and ripped the case as a hoax.
Trump attorney Jim Trusty, appearing on NBC on Friday morning, said Trump is ready for a battle. “He’s a fighter, and he’s going to come out swinging, and he’ll be fine,” Trusty said. “He’s not afraid of this thing.” Hours later, in a shocking turn of events, Trusty and another attorney on the team, John Rowley, resigned from the case.
Smith said he would seek a “speedy” trial for Trump. The special counsel has been investigating Trump over the removal of classified documents from the White House after he left office, as well as apparent efforts by Trump and his aides to potentially stymie the government’s investigation.
This is the second time Trump has been indicted. Earlier this year, a grand jury in New York indicted Trump on state charges for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to women who said they had sexual trysts with him.
Trump still faces two other criminal probes, as well: Smith’s investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol, and an inquiry in Georgia looking into whether he attempted to interfere with the presidential election in that state.
Key posts:
–CNBC’s Chelsey Cox, Rohan Goswami and Amanda Macias also contributed to this live blog.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the federal charges against Trump are “quite serious and cannot be casually dismissed.”
“Mishandling classified documents is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets, as well as the sources and methods they were obtained through,” she said in a statement, NBC reported.
“Anyone found guilty – whether an analyst, a former president, or another elected or appointed official – should face the same set of consequences.”
Murkowski was one of just a handful of Republicans to vote to convict Trump in the 2021 Senate impeachment trial over the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
— Kevin Breuninger
The top two Democrats in Congress responded to the federal indictment of former President Donald Trump with a statement that was notable more for what it did not say than for what it did.
“No one is above the law — including Donald Trump. This indictment must now play out through the legal process, without any outside political or ideological interference,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of New York, said in a formal statement. “We encourage Mr. Trump’s supporters and critics alike to let this case proceed peacefully in court.”
Coming from someone like Schumer, who regularly described Trump’s presidential actions as “disgusting, dishonorable, and disqualifying for high office,” this statement was surprisingly soft.
Yet the absence of any typical political battle rhetoric from leading Democrats may also hint at how serious they believe the case against Trump to be. If Trump is already facing an existential threat to his political career in the form of the 37-count indictment, Democrats don’t need to pile on.
— Christina Wilkie
Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment provides “overwhelming” evidence in support of the serious charges leveled against Trump, according to multiple legal experts.
“It is an extremely damning indictment,” said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who testified in Trump’s defense during the first impeachment effort against him in 2019.
“It’s overwhelming in details. And the Trump team should not fool itself, these are hits below the water line,” Turley said on Fox News. “This is not an indictment that you can dismiss.”
Norm Eisen, senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, was even more blunt in his assessment.
“Trump will very likely be convicted,” Eisen concluded after reading the indictment.
Eisen tweeted that the alleged mishandling of the documents, put on full display in the indictment through pictures showing boxes stacked in a bathroom and overturned in a storage room, was “crazy” and “incredibly dangerous.”
— Kevin Breuninger
Former President Donald Trump is under indictment for several federal crimes, but he still golfed earlier Friday morning with Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, according to a tweet posted on the congressman’s official account.
A smiling Trump wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and gave a thumbs-up alongside Gimenez.
— Amanda Macias
Special counsel Jack Smith stressed the seriousness of the crimes alleged against Trump as he announced the unprecedented federal indictment against the former president.
“This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida. And I invite everyone to read it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged,” Smith said in a brief statement delivered from a lectern to reporters at a Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C.
Smith, who has rarely been photographed since being tapped in November to lead two criminal probes into Trump, spoke for less than three minutes. He took no questions.
“Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced. Violations of those laws put our country at risk,” Smith said.
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” he said. “Applying those laws, collecting facts, that’s what determines the outcome of an investigation, nothing more and nothing less.”
Smith noted that Trump is innocent until proven guilty. And he said his office will “seek a speedy trial in this matter, consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused.”
— Kevin Breuninger
The U.S. Secret Service said it will ensure Trump’s safety during his upcoming arraignment in Miami federal court. But the agency said it “will not seek any special accommodations outside of what would be required” to guarantee the former president’s continued safety.
“As with any site visited by a protectee, the Secret Service is in constant coordination with the necessary entities to ensure protective requirements are met,” Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement tweeted Friday afternoon.
“We have the utmost confidence in the professionalism and commitment to security shared by our law enforcement partners in Florida,” Guglielmi said.
As a former president, Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, are entitled to lifetime protection from the Secret Service.
— Kevin Breuninger
Former President Donald Trump on Friday falsely claimed there was nothing wrong with keeping hundreds of classified documents that he took from the White House in 2021 and hiding them for over a year as government officials sought their return.
Trump’s post on his social media platform, Truth Social, came after a 37-count federal indictment against Trump was unsealed. It accused the former president and his personal aide of illegally keeping hundreds of pages of classified material.
“I supplied them openly, and without question, security tape from Mar-a-Lago. I had nothing to hide, nor do I now,” Trump wrote. This appears to be a reference to security footage mentioned in the 49-page indictment that showed the aide, Walt Nauta, moving dozens of boxes of papers back and forth from storage areas to Trump’s residence at his Palm Beach club.
“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,” Trump said. This statement appears to be in response to two events mentioned in the indictment, where Trump showed classified material to people who were visiting his office.
Trump also falsely claimed that “Under the Presidential Records Act, I’m allowed to do all this.”
On the contrary, the Presidential Records Act explicitly states that the moment a president ceases to hold the office, all the records of their presidency belong to the National Archives and Records Administration, not to the individual.
— Christina Wilkie
John Bolton, who once served as Donald Trump’s national security advisor in the White House, called on him to withdraw from the presidential race.
“Criminal charges are piling up around him,” Bolton wrote in a tweet. “If Trump truly stood for America First policies, he would support the rule of law instead of continually flouting it.”
Bolton didn’t leave his position on good terms. Trump said he fired Bolton after a little over a year in his administration, saying he “disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions.” Bolton, who is said to be considering a run for president himself, said he offered to resign.
— Michele Luhn
City and county police departments in Miami say they are preparing for Trump’s appearance in federal court next week.
“The City of Miami Police Department will work cohesively with our local, state, and federal partners to provide any assistance needed in the form of personnel, resources, detours, and/or road closures,” Chief of Police Manuel Morales said in a statement.
“We’re committed to protecting everyone’s first amendment right and will continue to serve our residents, business owners, and visitors while maintaining the safety of our community,” Morales said.
A spokesman for the Miami-Dade Police Department said they have not yet received any requests for federal support in advance of Trump’s scheduled arraignment Tuesday.
“Along with our partners at the City of Miami Police Department, we are prepared to provide any assistance, support and resources that may be needed,” Angel Rodriguez, the Miami-Dade spokesman, said in a statement.
Trump’s arrest and arraignment in a separate criminal case in Manhattan in April spurred a media frenzy, with a crush of sardine-packed reporters, photographers and other onlookers corralled outside that city’s criminal courthouse.
— Kevin Breuninger
Photos of boxes of government documents that former President Donald Trump took with him when he left the White House in 2021 show that some of the records, hundreds of which were later revealed to be classified, were stored in a marble bathroom at Mar-a-Lago, according to the Justice Department’s indictment.
Some were stacked on the stage of a ballroom at the Florida resort, and others were stacked in several storage rooms and a closet, according to DOJ photos.
Trump has long insisted that any classified documents he had were inadvertently removed from the White House and were then stored under lock and key. But the evidence laid out in the 49-page indictment against Trump and his personal aide, Walt Nauta, suggests that this was not the case.
According to the 49-page indictment, hundreds of classified documents — which were in among the rest of the papers — contained information about the “defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”
— Christina Wilkie
A congressional aide with knowledge of the matter and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida told NBC News that the nation’s highest intelligence agency has not yet provided lawmakers with an assessment of the potential national security risks caused by former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents.
“We’d like to know what damage, if any, was created by the improper storage of these documents. That’s what we’re waiting on next,” said Rubio, who is also the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, regarding the trove of intelligence documents discovered at Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago.
A congressional aide said a damage assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, has not been completed and that it was unclear what the timeline would be.
Last year, Avril Haines, who leads ODNI, told lawmakers that her office would lead a damage assessment into the Mar-a-Lago documents.
— Amanda Macias
Prosecutors anticipate their felony trial against Trump will take 21 days to complete, the indictment says.
If the parties only appear in court during weekdays, that means the trial could last at least a month, if not longer.
— Kevin Breuninger
If former President Donald Trump were to be convicted of the crimes that he was charged with on Thursday, he could be facing potentially decades behind bars, according to sentencing guidelines assembled by NBC News.
To be clear, the guidelines only lay out the maximum sentence, and many factors, both aggravating and mitigating, can influence a judge’s sentencing decision. It is also unlikely that Trump, even if he was convicted, would serve his sentences consecutively, which means each sentence is added on top of the others.
If not served consecutively, then the sentence would be served concurrently, meaning less total time behind bars.
But nonetheless, the numbers are daunting.
Trump was charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Trump was also charged with several crimes related to misleading investigators and his own lawyers about which documents he had. These include one count of false statements and representations, with a maximum sentence of five years, and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, with a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Other counts were related to the alleged concealment of documents.
One count was for allegedly withholding a document or record, with a maximum sentence of 20 years, one of corruptly concealing a document or record, also carrying a 20-year maximum, and a third count of concealing a document in a federal investigation, which carries a separate 20-year maximum.
The final count was for allegedly participating in a scheme to conceal, with a maximum sentence of five years.
— Christina Wilkie
Trump’s aide and alleged co-conspirator Walt Nauta found several boxes of White House documents — including a record marked “SECRET” — that had spilled their contents onto the floor of a storage room at Mar-a-Lago, according to the indictment.
“On December 7, 2021, NAUTA found several of TRUMP’s boxes fallen and their contents spilled onto the floor of the Storage Room, including a document marked ‘SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY,’ which denoted that the information in the document was releasable only to the Five Eyes intelligence alliance consisting of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States,” the indictment alleged.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
— Kevin Breuninger
Trump showed classified documents to other people on two separate occasions in 2021 after leaving the presidency, the federal criminal indictment against him alleges.
The first alleged instance was in July of that year, when Trump showed a “plan of attack” that he said was prepared for him by the Pentagon to a writer, a publisher and two members of his staff, none of whom were cleared to view the records.
Trump said the plan was “highly confidential” and “secret,” adding, “as president I could have declassified it” but “now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,” according to the indictment.
The second alleged instance was in August or September of 2021. Trump showed a representative of his political action committee “a classified map related to a military operation,” the indictment alleges.
Trump allegedly “told the representative that he should not be showing it” to them, and that they “should not get too close.”
Both alleged instances took place at Trump’s club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
— Kevin Breuninger
A 49-page indictment against former President Donald Trump alleging the mishandling of classified information has been unsealed.
The indictment contains 37 criminal counts against Trump and 38 counts against a Trump personal aide, Walt Nauta.
Of the 37 counts against Trump, 31 of them charge that Trump willfully retained national defense information, a violation of the Espionage Act. The other six allege Trump caused false statements to be made, concealed documents from investigators, obstructed justice and allegedly conspired to do these things.
The indictment also alleges Trump showed people classified documents on at least two occasions.
Read the whole indictment below.
— Christina Wilkie
A fundraising effort for former President Donald Trump is advertising the sale of T-shirts that have “I Stand With Trump” and Friday’s date printed on them.
“These brand-new shirts are flying off the shelves, but because we know you’re one of the President’s biggest supporters, we’re holding one just for YOU until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT,” according to the website selling the T-shirt.
In a separate email advertising the merchandise, the fundraising committee wrote:
Patriot,
June 8, 2023 will forever go down as a dark day in American history.
History books will record it as the day the Biden Administration unlawfully INDICTED the ONE and ONLY candidate beating Joe Biden in the polls.
It will be remembered as the day our Free Republic transformed into a Third World Marxist regime run by unelected bureaucrats.
But YOU can show these left-wing radicals that their vicious assault on our Republic not only failed – it BACKFIRED.
You can show the nation that, during these dark times, you chose to stand up for justice, you chose to STAND with President Trump!
The T-shirt is selling for $47, an aspirational symbol since Trump would be the 47th president were he elected next year.
— Amanda Macias
President Joe Biden, asked in North Carolina about Trump’s indictment by pool reporters, said, “I have no comment at all.”
A White House spokeswoman repeated that the administration had no comment and stressed that the DOJ “runs its criminal investigations independently.”
Biden has several good reasons to avoid weighing in on Trump’s legal problems, as CNBC’s Christina Wilkie pointed out earlier, including the fact that he’s facing his own special counsel investigation over classified documents.
— Michele Luhn
Former Vice President Mike Pence lamented the federal indictment of his former boss, calling it a “sad day in America” and accusing the Justice Department of acting politically against Trump, even as he reiterated that “no one is above the law.”
“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Pence, one of the latest Republicans to jump into the 2024 presidential race, said at a campaign stop in New Hampshire.
“I hoped the Department of Justice would see its way clear to resolve these issues with the former president without moving forward with charges. And I am deeply troubled to see this indictment move forward, believing it will only further divide our nation at a time that American families are facing real hardship at home and real peril abroad,” Pence said.
Pence kicked off his long-shot White House bid this week by coming out swinging against Trump, the current front-runner. Once close allies, Pence and Trump clashed after the then-vice president refused to help Trump try to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Pence noted in Friday’s remarks, “the handling of classified materials of the United States is a serious matter,” referencing the classified records that were found at his own residence in Indiana. The DOJ recently closed its probe into that matter without filing charges.
Pence also reiterated his call for Attorney General Merrick Garland to unseal Trump’s indictment before the end of the day. “Once the facts and the laws are explained and revealed in full to the American people we can all make our own judgment,” he said.
— Kevin Breuninger
Federal Judge Aileen Cannon of the Southern District of Florida, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020, has been assigned to initially oversee the federal classified documents case against Trump, NBC News has confirmed.
Trump is scheduled to appear in federal district court in Miami on Tuesday to face charges stemming from his alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House.
Cannon first came to national attention in a related legal matter last fall, when Trump sued the Justice Department demanding the return of hundreds of classified materials that were seized from his Mar-a-Lago estate, documents Trump claimed were his property.
In a surprise ruling, Cannon granted Trump’s request for an outside examiner, called a special master, to independently review thousands of pages of seized records, ostensibly to check if any were covered by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege.
Cannon also barred the government from using the documents, while they were under review by the special master, to help prosecutors build a case against the former president.
The Justice Department appealed Cannon’s special master ruling to an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with prosecutors and overruled Cannon.
It was unclear Friday whether Cannon had been randomly assigned to Trump’s new case, or whether the court considered Trump’s lawsuit last fall to be “related” to his prosecution this summer, and assigned Cannon automatically in an effort to prevent overlap.
It’s also uncertain whether Cannon would remain the judge in the case.
— Christina Wilkie
Trump said on social media that he “just learned” that the Department of Justice will also be indicting Walt Nauta, who worked under him at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, as part of the classified documents case.
Trump’s announcement in a social media post seemed to confirm reporting from news outlets including The Wall Street Journal that Nauta was charged in an indictment returned Thursday.
Slamming the DOJ as corrupt “Thugs,” Trump’s post claimed that federal authorities “are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping that he will say bad things about ‘Trump.'”
NBC News reported that Nauta, a U.S. Navy veteran, was being eyed by investigators over his accounts of whether he moved boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at Trump’s urging.
“He is strong, brave, and a Great Patriot. The FBI and DOJ are CORRUPT!” Trump wrote of Nauta.
— Kevin Breuninger
Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the target of Trump’s mantra “Lock her up,” weighed in after news of his indictment: “Here’s to justice.”
The remarks were in response to former aide Grady Keefe’s congratulatory tweet, complete with the hashtag #LockHimUp.
“Here’s to justice. Here’s to karma,” Keefe tweeted, to which Clinton replied, “I appreciate you so much, my friend. Indeed, here’s to justice.”
Clinton faced a barrage of attacks from Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, including unfounded accusations over her misuse of a private email server as U.S. secretary of State. She was not charged in the matter, although she lost the general election to Trump.
— Chelsey Cox
Two attorneys who have represented Trump announced Friday that they will no longer defend him in the federal criminal case against him.
“This morning we tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and we will no longer represent him on either the indicted case or the January 6 investigation,” read a joint statement from attorneys Jim Trusty and John Rowley. The announcement came hours after Trusty appeared on NBC’s “TODAY” show to discuss the case.
“It has been an honor to have spent the last year defending him, and we know he will be vindicated in his battle against the Biden Administration’s partisan weaponization of the American justice system,” they wrote in the statement, which was sent to CNBC by Trusty.
“Now that the case has been filed in Miami, this is a logical moment for us to step aside and let others carry the cases through to completion. We have no plans to hold media appearances that address our withdrawals or any other confidential communications we’ve had with the President or his legal team,” their statement said.
Minutes earlier, Trump announced on social media he would be represented in the documents case by Todd Blanche, who was already leading Trump’s defense in a separate criminal case in Manhattan.
“I want to thank Jim Trusty and John Rowley for their work, but they were up against a very dishonest, corrupt, evil, and ‘sick’ group of people,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
— Kevin Breuninger
President Joe Biden has several good reasons to avoid weighing in on Donald Trump’s legal problems. Chief among them is that the president is facing his own special counsel probe into classified documents from the Obama administration that were discovered at Biden’s former office in Washington and his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
Also looming over the situation is Trump’s potential presidential campaign against Biden in 2024. The mere fact that a Justice Department led by Biden’s appointee, Attorney General Merrick Garland, is pursuing charges against the president’s political opponent is unprecedented, and invites questions about whether the prosecution could be tainted by politics.
The appointment of special counsel Jack Smith was intended to put many of these questions to rest.
Nonetheless, if Biden were to use the charges to attack Trump as his political opponent, it could erode public faith in the independence of the special counsel.
This could backfire on Biden, giving the impression that he was abusing his power, by having the Justice Department help him settle his political scores.
Trump was impeached in 2019 for allegedly doing just that, threatening to withhold U.S. aid from Ukraine unless President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped Trump dig up dirt on Biden’s family.
— Christina Wilkie
Sen. Mitt Romney on Friday said Donald Trump himself is to blame for charges brought against him in the classified documents probe.
“Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so,” said Romney, R-Utah, one of the most vocal opponents in Trump’s party.
His current stance on the federal indictment is markedly different from when he criticized the Manhattan district attorney’s office earlier this spring for stretching “to reach felony criminal charges in order to fit a political agenda” in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. Trump was indicted and arraigned on those charges in April.
Romney was among a handful of Republican senators who voted to convict Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial in 2021. Romney, who lost the 2012 presidential race to then-President Barack Obama, said the Justice Department has “exercised due care” in this case by “affording Mr. Trump the time and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others.”
— Chelsey Cox
President Joe Biden learned of former President Donald Trump’s indictment on federal charges related to classified documents late Thursday evening, when senior aides showed him public news reports about it, a Biden administration official told NBC.
The president was not given any advance notice by the Justice Department that special counsel Jack Smith would be filing charges against his predecessor. The White House also declined to comment on the indictment after it became public. Biden is likewise not expected to comment on the federal charges, which have not been released.
This reaction from the White House is similar to what happened the last time Trump was indicted earlier this spring by a Manhattan state court grand jury for allegedly falsifying business records.
“I’m not going to talk about Trump’s indictment,” Biden said to reporters at the White House, shortly before the Manhattan DA’s charges were made public.
— Christina Wilkie
Trump’s arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday, a day before his 77th birthday. He will also proceed with a previously scheduled birthday fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey, club Tuesday night, according to NBC News.
While President Joe Biden’s age, 80, has become a concern for voters and fellow Democrats, Trump isn’t too far behind him. Already, Trump was the second-oldest man to serve as president, behind Biden and ahead of Ronald Reagan.
Come Election Day 2024, Biden will be 81 and Trump will be 78.
— Mike Calia
While the special counsel investigation into Trump’s retention of classified documents has yielded numerous criminal charges, a separate inquiry into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified records is ongoing.
About two months after Attorney General Merrick Garland selected Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee criminal probes into Trump, the AG appointed another special counsel to investigate classified documents found at Biden’s private home and office.
Biden is expected to provide an interview to the special counsel, former federal prosecutor Robert Hur, if asked to do so, NBC News reported Thursday.
Biden, who is seeking reelection, has said he is “fully cooperating” with the Justice Department’s probe.
Trump’s announcement of his federal indictment suggested he was the victim of disparate treatment by the government toward him and Biden, since they are both being investigated for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
But there are key differences between the two investigations. Biden’s aides say they immediately turned the materials over to the government after their discovery. In Trump’s case, federal agents issued a subpoena for classified records and then searched Mar-a-Lago, seizing more than 100 documents with classified markings and revealing they were investigating possible obstruction.
Meanwhile, the DOJ recently closed its probe into classified documents found at the home of former Vice President Mike Pence, another presidential candidate. The DOJ decided not to file charges.
— Kevin Breuninger
Mike Pence, who was Donald Trump’s vice president, urged the Justice Department to unseal the indictment against his former boss immediately.
“I think the sooner we bring the facts forward to the American people, the better,” Pence told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday. “The American people have a right to know of the basis for both the facts and the law underpinning the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States under federal law.”
Pence also urged Attorney General Merrick Garland to explain the case to the country. “I think at very minimum, the attorney general of the United States should appear before the American people, lay out all the facts that they know, all the relevant law in this case, and answer questions until every question is answered,” he said.
The former vice president has testified before a grand jury in Washington pertaining to special counsel Jack Smith’s probes of Trump’s attempt to hold on to power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Pence entered the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination earlier this week. He joins a field that’s currently led by Trump, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a distant second, according to polls.
— Mike Calia
Trump acknowledged that he had not declassified “secret” military information that he kept after leaving the presidency, according to a transcript of a 2021 audio recording reported Friday morning by CNN.
“As president, I could have declassified, but now I can’t,” the transcript shows Trump saying during a 2021 meeting at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort, according to CNN.
“Secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this,” Trump said at one point, CNN reported. “This was done by the military and given to me.” He made these remarks as he complained about Gen. Mark Milley, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Trump’s final days in office.
Multiple news outlets previously reported that prosecutors in the Trump documents probe had obtained the audio of that meeting, in which Trump indicated he had kept a classified record related to Iran. Details of the transcript had not been made public until Friday.
— Kevin Breuninger
Trump’s federal criminal case is under seal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, and could remain so until closer to his arraignment next week.
When it wasn’t crashing due to likely overwhelming traffic, the government court website PACER showed a number of sealed cases filed in Thursday’s criminal cases report. Those cases include a case number and filing date, but no additional publicly accessible information.
At least one of them is expected to eventually be revealed as the Trump classified documents case.
Trump faces seven criminal charges, and he could face more than one criminal count for each charge, though multiple news outlets have reported that he faces seven counts, as well.
The former president said he is scheduled to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon. He had stashed boxes of White House documents, classified and otherwise, at his private South Florida club Mar-a-Lago.
— Kevin Breuninger
When he was the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, Donald Trump vowed, “In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information.”
“No one will be above the law,” Trump continued in his speech at an Aug. 16, 2016, campaign rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.
A video of Trump’s ironically prophetic promise was tweeted by Howard Mortman, communications director for C-Span, the morning after Trump was indicted for multiple crimes related to his retention of classified documents after he left office.
“Lol,” one Twitter user replied to Mortman. “That hasn’t aged well.”
Trump during the 2016 campaign had repeatedly accused his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, of misconduct for using a private email server as secretary of State, which led to classified information ending up in that server.
“She set up this illegal server knowing full well that her actions put our national security at risk and put the safety and security of your children and your families at risk,” Trump told supporters in Arizona at an Oct. 29, 2016, campaign event.
— Dan Mangan
Donald Trump’s legal team thinks this is the only indictment the former president is facing from special counsel Jack Smith, one of Trump’s attorneys told NBC’s “TODAY” show Friday.
“We think that’s the only indictment we’re facing,” said lawyer James Trusty when he was asked whether he believes Trump will also be charged in Washington, D.C., federal court. Smith is also investigating Trump in a separate criminal case regarding his efforts to cling to power after he lost to Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
(Additionally, Trump is subject of a state election interference probe in Georgia, and he’s already under indictment in New York for allegedly falsifying business documents related to hush money payoffs.)
Trusty also told “TODAY” that he and his fellow Trump lawyers found out about the Miami federal grand jury “fairly recently.” The classified documents case is apparently venued in South Florida since Trump had kept boxes of records at his Mar-a-Lago club.
— Mike Calia
Media outlets had already started swarming the federal courthouse in Miami after it became evident in recent days that special counsel Jack Smith had a grand jury there.
It’s going to get even crazier, however, with Trump ordered to appear for his arraignment at 3 p.m. ET Tuesday.
— Mike Calia
Attorney General Merrick Garland didn’t approve or sign off on the charges special counsel Jack Smith brought against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC News reporting.
Both he and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco have received regular briefings on the case. But under Justice Department rules, Garland only could have blocked “unwarranted” or “inappropriate” moves by Smith.
— Mike Calia
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said Trump put U.S. national security in “grave danger” by pursuing “yet another lawless personal agenda,” in a statement Thursday.
Raskin, the ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability, urged Republicans to respect the outcome of the special counsel’s “comprehensive investigation.”
“We must ensure that federal officials preserve our country’s records in a way that is consistent with law and that safeguards our national interests,” said Raskin, who was on the House’s Jan. 6 commission.
New York Democrat Jerry Nadler, the ranking member of the House Judiciary committee, said in a tweet Thursday that “no man is above the law.”
“He will have his day in court, in Miami and Manhattan and Atlanta too if it comes to it,” he said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “The rule of law is central to the integrity of our democracy. It must be applied without fear or favor. To everyone.”
— Ashley Capoot, Christine Wang
Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s last chief of staff in the White House, has been quiet for months, prompting speculation about his potential involvement with the special counsel’s probe.
There’s been no confirmation yet about that, but a key piece of evidence in the classified documents investigation has emerged in recent weeks.
NBC News previously reported that special counsel Jack Smith had obtained an audio recording of Trump in July 2021 discussing a classified military planning document. On the tape, the former president acknowledged that the document was classified, which would run against his argument that he had declassified the documents he kept when he left the White House.
The recording had been made during a meeting in Bedminster, New Jersey, between Trump and people who were helping Meadows write his memoir, NBC reported.
–Mike Calia
Former Vice President Mike Pence was slated to appear on the Fox News show “Hannity” on Thursday night to talk about his recently announced candidacy for president.
However, the indictment of Pence’s former boss, Donald Trump, quickly seized the spotlight.
Because of that, Pence’s and Sean Hannity’s respective teams decided to reschedule, NBC News reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
–Mike Calia
The section of the government court website where Trump’s indictment will likely be posted has crashed.
The website PACER, short for Public Access to Court Electronic Records, allows users to search for records and docket information from federal district, appellate and bankruptcy court cases.
The page for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida has been unable to load since shortly after Trump announced his federal indictment.
— Kevin Breuninger
The Espionage Act was passed shortly after the United States entered World War I in an attempt to crack down on wartime dissent.
It criminalized the collection of certain military information and the sharing of sensitive information with those who lacked the appropriate clearances. Many portions of it are still law.
Now Donald Trump is accused of violating it, according to his attorney James Trusty.
The law has been used in several prominent cases in the past decade, including when the U.S. charged former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange for leaking sensitive documents.
The Department of Justice cited the act in the search warrant it used to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents.
— Michele Luhn
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s top rival in the Republican presidential primary, defended Trump as he claimed federal law enforcement has been “weaponized” for political purposes.
“We have for years witnessed an uneven application of the law depending upon political affiliation,” DeSantis tweeted.
“Why so zealous in pursuing Trump yet so passive about Hillary or Hunter?” he wrote, referencing Trump’s 2016 presidential opponent, Hillary Clinton, and President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden is also the subject of a federal criminal probe.
DeSantis once touted his close relationship with Trump, but he has since become a major target of the former president’s ire. The governor has mostly avoided striking back at Trump by name on the campaign trail, though he has increasingly pushed back on the front-runner’s attacks.
“The DeSantis administration will bring accountability to the DOJ, excise political bias and end weaponization once and for all,” DeSantis tweeted.
— Kevin Breuninger
Twitter owner Elon Musk suggested that there was “higher interest” in the indictment of former President Donald Trump compared to “other” people in politics, whom he didn’t name. The suggestion was made in response to a tweet from a pro-Trump user.
David Sacks, a venture capitalist, Twitter advisor and close associate of Musk’s, weighed in shortly after, comparing Trump’s indictment to the allegations from federal officials that President Joe Biden had kept government documents in the garage of his Delaware home.
Musk has courted prominent figures in right-wing politics and media. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has started a Twitter show on Musk’s platform. The billionaire also hosted presidential candidate and Trump competitor Ron DeSantis’ Twitter campaign launch, which was plagued with errors and technical challenges.
CNBC has previously reported on Sacks’ relationship with DeSantis and prominent Republican donors.
— Rohan Goswami
In the nearly seven months since Trump launched his 2024 presidential bid, the legal threats looming over him have grown immensely — but so has his lead in the Republican primary.
In April, Manhattan prosecutors charged Trump with dozens of counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to two women who alleged he had affairs with them. Trump is also embroiled in a Georgia prosecutor’s investigation of potential interference in her state’s 2020 election, and he faces a range of civil claims in multiple courts.
Yet many public opinion surveys of the GOP primary field show Trump’s lead expanding, while his nearest competitor, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, has seen a slump in the polls.
It’s far from clear how the unprecedented federal indictment of a former president will play out on the campaign trail, which is still months away from the first primary contests.
— Kevin Breuninger
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he stands with Trump in a statement posted to his Twitter account and pledged that House Republicans would “hold this brazen weaponization of power accountable.”
“Today is indeed a dark day for the United States of America,” the California Republican wrote. “It is unconscionable for a President to indict the leading candidate opposing him.”
McCarthy also accused President Joe Biden of keeping documents classified “for decades.” The Justice Department has appointed a different special counsel to look into the Biden documents matter.
— Michele Luhn
The White House had no advance notice of Trump’s indictment in the special counsel probe, an official told NBC News.
The White House learned of the charges against the former president from public media reports, the official told NBC.
Trump and his allies have accused President Joe Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department against his predecessor.
— Kevin Breuninger
It’s unclear how voters will react to the news of Trump’s indictment, but a recent poll touched on the question.
More than 60% of people surveyed in a Yahoo-YouGov poll conducted in late May said the act of “taking highly classified documents from the White House and obstructing efforts to retrieve them” is a serious crime.
The same poll showed that 62% of Americans agreed Trump shouldn’t be allowed to serve as president if he’s convicted of a “serious crime.”
Nonetheless, the announcement in April that the former president had been indicted in New York on charges alleging falsification of business documents prompted Republicans to rally behind Trump, and he remains the leading candidate in the GOP primary.
— Michele Luhn
In April, Donald Trump became the first ex-president in U.S. history to be arrested and arraigned on criminal charges. But that previous case was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg — and was not a federal case.
Bragg had obtained a grand jury indictment charging the ex-president with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to his alleged role in a scheme that directed hush money payments to two women during the 2016 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty in that case.
Thursday’s charges make him the first U.S. president ever to be indicted on federal criminal charges.
Other investigations into Trump include the special counsel’s Jan. 6 probe and a separate state inquiry by prosecutor Fani Willis into possible interference by Trump and his allies in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. He also faces a New York civil case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James alleging widespread business fraud.
— Michele Luhn
Some of the charges against Trump include making false statements, conspiracy to obstruct and willfully retaining documents in violation of the Espionage Act, sources confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.
The counts carry a penalty of up to 20 years in prison if Trump is convicted, though a resulting sentence would likely be less due to federal sentencing guidelines.
–Ashley Capoot
Trump’s criminal case could move quickly through federal court in Miami, which in recent years has been part of one of the nation’s fastest civil trial courts.
That’s because the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida was the third-fastest civil trial court of the 94 federal district courts in 2021, according to Law360, which cited data from the U.S. Courts’ Caseload Statistics Data Tables page. Federal courts can hear civil and criminal cases.
The data puts it in contention with the Eastern District of Virginia, which has long been dubbed the “rocket docket.” In 2021, the Northern District of Florida had the fastest median civil trial time, while the Eastern District of Virginia came second.
However, Trump’s case could be more complicated given that he’s a former president in the midst of an election campaign.
— Kevin Breuninger
Sen. Tim Scott, another Republican presidential hopeful, said he has not spoken to Trump yet but will “continue to pray for our nation” after the news of his indictment.
“Every person is presumed innocent, not guilty, and what we’ve seen over the last several years is the weaponization of the Department of Justice against the former president,” Scott said Thursday during an interview on Fox News.
–Ashley Capoot
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans who appeared on the Jan. 6 committee that investigated the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol, wrote in a tweet Thursday that Trump is “a criminal not a victim.”
Kinzinger said Trump is “corrupt” and that he will try to claim the indictment is a “witch-hunt.”
“If in fact he was the victim (he’s not) he would be one of the weakest men ever, since he just continually gets victimized and can’t stop it,” he wrote.
— Ashley Capoot
Mary Trump, who wrote a damning tell-all book about her uncle and then sued him and other family members in a lawsuit alleging fraud, taunted her relative after news of his federal indictment.
Mary Trump posted a picture on Twitter of Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in the 2016 presidential election, bearing an unimpressed expression and resting her head on her hand.
“For those of you keeping score at home: ZERO indictments / ZERO counts,” the former president’s niece tweeted.
— Kevin Breuninger
Former New Jersey governor and current Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie advised people to wait for more information before making judgments about Trump’s indictment.
“We don’t get our news from Trump’s Truth Social account. Let’s see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released,” Christie said in a tweet.
“As I have said before, no one is above the law, no matter how much they wish they were,” said Christie, a former federal prosecutor and onetime close Trump ally who has since become one of his most vocal Republican critics.
“We will have more to say when the facts are revealed,” he said.
— Michele Luhn and Kevin Breuninger
The federal probe into the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago was led by Jack Smith, a former chief prosecutor at The Hague.
Smith was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland last November to serve as special counsel overseeing Trump-related criminal probes into the classified documents and the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Upon taking up the role of special counsel, Smith resigned from his job at The Hague investigating and adjudicating war crimes in Kosovo, Garland said in his announcement.
Smith’s career as a prosecutor began in the New York County District Attorney’s Office in the 1990s. He became an assistant U.S. attorney in New York in 1999. In 2008, he worked at The Hague overseeing war crime prosecutions. From 2010 to 2015, he headed the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity section.
He also competes in Ironman triathlon races, Reuters reported.
— Kevin Breuninger
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on seven counts, his attorney John Rowley confirmed to NBC News.
The specific nature of the charges remains unknown, as the indictment remains sealed.
— Ashley Capoot
Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy called Trump’s indictment “an affront to every citizen” in a statement Thursday.
“We cannot devolve into a banana republic where the party in power uses police force to arrest its political opponents,” said Ramaswamy, whose bid for the White House is considered a long shot.
He pledged to pardon Trump in January 2025 if he’s elected.
— Ashley Capoot
Trump posted a four-minute video of himself ripping his political foes and accusing those responsible for his latest indictment of trying to interfere with the 2024 presidential election.
“They figured the way they’re going to stop us is by using what’s called warfare. And that’s what it is, this is warfare for the law, and we can’t let it happen,” Trump said in the video posted from his Truth Social account.
“We can’t let this continue to go on because it’s ripping our country to shreds,” Trump said.
He claimed the federal indictment was a “hoax,” likening it to a bevy of other investigations, scandals and impeachment efforts that have swirled around the president over the course of his political career.
“It’s just a continuation — seven years, even after I’m out,” he said.
— Kevin Breuninger
The Trump campaign wasted no time attempting to leverage the former president’s indictment as a fundraising opportunity.
“We are watching our Republic DIE before our very eyes,” read a fundraising message attributed to Trump.
The message decries the “Deep State” aiming to “take us down,” before asking for contributions — with suggested amounts of $24, $47, $75, $100 or $250 — in order to “prove that YOU will NEVER surrender our country to the radical left.”
— Kevin Breuninger
The White House told NBC’s Kristen Welker it will not comment on Trump’s indictment.
— Ashley Capoot
Former President Donald Trump was quick to proclaim his innocence and tar his prosecutors as politically corrupt as he revealed that he has been indicted on charges related to the classified documents he kept after leaving office.
“I AM AN INNOCENT MAN,” Trump declared in a three-part social media post on his platform Truth Social.
“This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America,” Trump wrote. “We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again!”
— Kevin Breuninger
