Donald Trump faces 37 charges, including ‘withholding national security information’ and ‘obstructing justice’ in White House records case, indictment says made public on Friday.
The former Republican president, who had taken boxes of files when leaving Washington, is also accused of perjury and of having agreed with his assistant Walt Nauta to conceal documents requested by the federal police.
US nuclear secrets were among the documents illegally kept by Donald Trump after his departure from the White House, according to the indictment made public on Friday.
“Classified documents that Trump kept in boxes included information on the defense capabilities of the United States and foreign countries” and “about the nuclear programs” of the United States, according to this document. Their potential “dissemination would have endangered the national security of the United States”, add the prosecutors.
Donald Trump said on Friday that a former personal assistant and possible leading witness in the case will also be charged by federal justice in the archival case.
The former US president did not detail the charges against Walt Nauta, a military officer attached to the presidency during Mr Trump’s tenure before leaving the administration to continue working alongside him after his defeat of 2020.
“I just learned that the Justice Department ‘thugs’ are going to indict Walt Nauta, a wonderful man,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
“They are trying to destroy his life, like the lives of so many others, hoping he will say bad things about ‘Trump’,” he added.
According to ABC News, Walt Nauta was indicted by the same grand jury — a panel of citizens with broad investigative powers that works alongside prosecutors — that indicted Donald Trump. The charges against Mr. Nauta are not known.
According to washington postWalt Nauta is a “essential witness” in the federal investigation led by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith which led to the indictment of the former president.
According to the daily, Mr. Nauta was responsible, in the Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida where Mr. Trump has lived since he left the White House, to “move” the boxes of documents which contain the notes of the former president.