Details of the federal government’s classified documents case against Donald Trump were revealed Friday as the 37-count indictment was unsealed.
This 49-page document It is a sad story of how Trump, in his last days as president, moved the dozens and dozens document boxes he took from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate compound. This was done because the need for a better location grew.
A text exchange between two Mar-a-Lago employees discussing the movement of boxes was featured in the indictment and indicates a growing sensitivity for the situation and an awareness of the documents’ importance, with one instructing the other that “anything that’s not the beautiful mind paper boxes can go to storage.”
“We can definitely make it work if we move his papers into the lake room?” Trump Employee 2 said in a text appearing on Page 11, kicking off a brief text conversation between the two.
Trump Employee 1 responds that there is “still a little room in the shower where his other stuff is.”
“Is it only papers he cares about?” Employee 1 asks. “Theres some other stuff in there that are only papers. This could be stored. Or does he want everything in there on property.”
Employee 2 then references the Oscars’ Best Picture-winning 2001 film “A Beautiful Mind,” which told the story of a tortured genius played by Russell Crowe who works on a classified assignment for the U.S. Department of Defense.
“Yes – anything that’s not the beautiful mind paper boxes can definitely go to storage,” Employee 2 says. “Want to take a look at the space and start moving tomorrow AM?”
The indictment shows a photo of more than a dozen boxes being moved from the office to a restroom.
This text exchange was dated April 5, 2021. It is one year before FBI began an investigation, followed by a Federal Grand Jury convened a few weeks later.
The nature of the information detailed in the indictment on the “top secret” documents Trump is alleged to have taken and kept despite subpoena is in-depth and daunting. Among the 31 categories laid out, they are alleged to include information on a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities, communications with a foreign leader and military attacks by a foreign country.
The indictment in the case led by special prosecutor Jack Smith also includes an account of the movement of boxes leading up to the search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, in which the FBI is said to have seized 102 classified documents in Trump’s office and the property’s storage room.
Indictment states that a trial could last up to 21 days.
