What we learned about the prosecution's case.
The indictment says that Mar-a-Lago was a particularly vulnerable location for the classified documents because it’s “an active social club [that] hosted events for tens of thousands of members and guests” – a far cry from the closely guarded “sensitive compartmented information facility,” or SCIF, that is typically used to store the most sensitive national security secrets.
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mishandling of classified documents according to an indictment unsealed Friday, June 9, 2023. | Justice Department via AP
Trump has railed at the FBI for spreading classified documents across the floor of a closet during a search of Mar-a-Lago last August. But prosecutors say Trump’s own storage of the documents was just as sloppy. The indictment says some of the classified records at Mar-a-Lago were stored in “a ballroom, a bathroom and shower [and] his bedroom.”Other details from the indictment emphasize the haphazard nature with which sensitive government documents were strewn around the estate.
One of the documents, classified “Secret” and marked for release only to U.S. officials and close allies, discussed “military capabilities of a foreign country,” the indictment says.Prosecutors don’t often wade into politicians’ stump speeches, but special counsel Jack Smith wasn’t shy about including some of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric in the indictment.
Of course, the remarks Trump made were prompted by allegations that his rival for the presidency that year, Hillary Clinton, had kept classified information on a private email server. By citing the comments, Smith could fuel claims that he’s injecting politics into a case that should be focused solely on weighty national security issues.Smith also could not resist including a statement Trump made in 2018 about the dangers of giving former officials access to national security secrets.
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