Here’s what we learned from the indictment.

Federal prosecutors on Friday unsealed charges against former President Donald J. Trump and one of his personal aides, Walt Nauta, revealing damning new details about a more than year-long investigation into Trump’s handling of classified material.

The 49-page indictment, containing 38 indictments and seven separate charges, provided the clearest picture yet of the files Mr. Trump took with him when he left the White House. It said he had illegally kept documents related to “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.”

“The unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents may pose a risk to United States national security, foreign relations, the security of the United States military and human resources, and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence gathering methods,” the indictment said. .

The indictment described Mr Trump as willfully holding onto documents that some aides called “his papers.” It describes how Mr. Trump suggested to one of his lawyers that it was possible to tell prosecutors that “we have nothing here” after a grand jury subpoena was issued for any remaining classified material in his possession.

“I don’t want anyone looking in my boxes, I really don’t,” Trump also told the attorney at that meeting, according to the indictment.

Much of the story told in the indictment has in many ways been publicly known for months amid extensive news media coverage of the investigation. And yet, despite all that information, the public had only a keyhole in the amount of evidence the government had gathered.

There were new details, such as a sensitive “Five Eyes” intelligence file that emerged from a box on the floor of the storage room at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s club and residence in Florida.

And shockingly, Mr. Trump, who for years avoided people close to him taking notes of his conversations, was indicted in part based on notes from one of his lawyers and an audiotape of a meeting he was at. consciously included.

According to his lawyers’ notes, Mr. Trump made a “picking motion” that he said implied, “Why don’t you take them to your hotel room and if there’s something bad in there, like, you know, pick it out.”

The indictment exposed a conspiracy between Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta, who allegedly moved about 64 boxes from a Mar-a-Lago storage unit to Mr. Trump’s residence in the compound. The indictment said Mr Nauta had only returned about 30 boxes to the storage facility and apparently left the rest unattended.

In addition, prosecutors presented evidence that in July 2021 Mr Trump had shared a highly sensitive “plan of attack” against Iran with visitors to his golf club in Bedminster, NJ – and was taped describing the material as “highly confidential” and “secret” , while admitting that it was not released. In another incident in September 2021, he shared a top-secret military map with a member of his political action committee who lacked security clearance.

It is unusual for prosecutors to drop charges before a defendant appears in court for the first time. But the decision to release the document in this case came as Trump and his allies aggressively attacked the investigation and, according to federal law enforcement officials, distorted elements of the case.

The move was in line with the practice of the Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, of releasing information to the public through their court files — a tactic the Department used to try to scrutinize the detailed affidavit. release statement used to justify Mr Trump’s search. stay in Florida last August.