Trump Indictment: The Details

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Good morning,

A miracle in Colombia to start your morning! Believe it or not, four children survived on their own for 40 days in the Amazon jungle — home to jaguars and venomous snakes — after their plane crashed last month and killed all three adults on board (including their mother).

They’re aged 13, 9, 4, and 1, and were found alive Friday after search and rescue crews spent weeks tracking down clues like a dirty diaper and some footprints.

One of our favorite reactions…

Moral of the story: we should all be training our kids like indigenous tribes.

Make it a great week!

Mosheh, Jill, & Courtney

🗞 TRUMP INDICTMENT UNSEALED

The historic indictment against former President Donald Trump that we told you about on Friday has been unsealed.

INSIDE THE INDICTMENT
The gist: When Trump left the White House after his term ended in January 2021, he took hundreds of classified documents with him to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, and then repeatedly prevented and blocked efforts by the government to get the records back. This latter part is the key part of the indictment.

Trump is accused of violating seven federal laws and faces 37 separate charges. They are focused on 31 of the hundreds of classified documents he took home, along with charges of repeatedly lying to the government, and concealing and tampering with evidence.

His longtime aide Walt Nauta also faces six charges as part of the conspiracy.

WHAT WAS IN THE DOCS?
They allegedly contained highly sensitive information that could have posed a significant threat to U.S. national security had they fallen into the wrong hands — information like defense and weapons capabilities of both the U.S. and foreign countries, U.S. nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the U.S. to military attacks, and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.

Here’s the FULL INDICTMENT.

BOXES BOXES EVERYWHERE
According to the indictment, Trump stored classified documents in a bathroom, a shower, a ballroom, an office, his bedroom, and a storage room.

For a period of time, Trump kept the documents inside Mar-a-Lago’s White and Gold Ballroom, where dozens of events and gatherings took place. The boxes were left stacked on the ballroom stage.

One photo in the indictment shows boxes of spilled documents on the floor, mixed with newspapers and photographs. According to the indictment, Trump aide Walt Nauta found the contents of several boxes spilled on the floor of the storage room in December 2021, including a “Five Eyes” classified document, which means intelligence only shared among five countries: the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

THE CHARGES
Trump faces 37 charges, including obstruction and concealment of documents (maximum prison sentence):

• 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information under Espionage Act (10 years)

• 1 count of conspiracy to obstruct justice (20 years)

• 1 count of withholding a document or record (20 years)

• 1 count of corruptly concealing a documentarian or record (20 years)

• 1 count of concealing a document in a federal investigation (20 years)

• 1 count of scheme to conceal (5 years)

• 1 count of false statements and representations (5 years)

OUR LIPS ARE (NOT) SEALED
Trump’s also accused of flaunting the classified documents on at least two occasions. For example, in July 2021, in an audio-recorded meeting with a writer and two members of his staff, Trump “showed and described a plan of attack” against a foreign country. He said it was prepared for him by the Defense Department. He acknowledges on tape that it is classified and that he lost his opportunity to declassify it after leaving office. That is in contrast to his public assertions that he declassified everything.

TRUMP’S RESPONSE: “I’LL NEVER LEAVE”
At campaign rallies in Georgia and North Carolina on Saturday, Trump slammed the indictment as “baseless” and a “political hit job” but a “deranged” Special Prosecutor: “Republicans are treated far different at the Justice Department than Democrats.”

In an interview with Politico, Trump said he will still run for president even if he were to be convicted in the classified documents case. “I’ll never leave,” he vowed.

TRUMP, CLINTON, BIDEN, & PENCE: THE MAIN DIFFERENCE
A lot of Trump defenders are asking why the former President’s possession of classified material is any different vs Hillary Clinton’s emails & the docs found at President Biden’s or former VP Mike Pence’s homes.

Long story short: The main difference is about willfulness and obstruction.

Federal investigators never found Clinton intended to break laws related to classified records. Additionally, both Biden and Pence immediately contacted the National Archives and offered to return all documents upon finding them. Prosecutors allege that Trump, in contrast, repeatedly obstructed efforts to retrieve the classified documents from Mar-a-Lago (aka the coverup). Pence has already been cleared and a special counsel investigation into Biden continues. We discuss this —at length— in today’s Mo News podcast.

WHAT’S NEXT?
Trump will appear in court tomorrow in Miami at 3pmET, where he will surrender to authorities and be arraigned in a federal courthouse. That starts what is expected to be a long and arduous legal challenge by Trump that could easily bleed into — and extend well beyond — the 2024 presidential election. One strategy for defense: eventually try to sow doubt with at least one juror and cause a mistrial.

IN TRUMP’S FAVOR
The judge who is scheduled to oversee the case, as of now, is Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon. She was selected at random. She was nominated by Trump himself in 2020 and was criticized for showing him preferential treatment last year.

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🗓 ON THIS DAY: JUNE 12

• 1967: In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia. The historic decision was spurred by interracial couple Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested in 1958.

• 1972: Happy 51^st birthday to Popeyes Chicken! Originally named Chicken on the Run, the first Popeyes restaurant opened in the New Orleans suburb of Arabi, Louisiana.

• 1987: 36 years ago today, standing at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

• 1999: In music history, JLo’s first single, If You Had My Love, kicked Livin’ La Vida Loca from it’s spot as #1 on the Billboard charts.