What Crimes Was Trump Charged With In Federal Documents Case? Here’s What To Know As He Pleads Not Guilty

Topline

Former President Donald Trump will appear in court Tuesday, where he’s expected to plead not guilty to 37 felony charges against him, including charges for allegedly willfully retaining national defense information and conspiring to obstruct justice—which could carry prison sentences if he’s convicted.

Former President Donald Trump is seen leaving Trump Tower after being indicted by a New York Grand … [+] Jury on April 4 in New York City.

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Key Facts

The indictment charges Trump with 31 alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. 793 for the willful retention of national defense information, along with one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice (18 U.S.C. § 1512), withholding a document or record (18 U.S.C. 1512), corruptly concealing a document or record (18 U.S.C. §§ 1512), concealing a document in a federal investigation (18U.S.C. §§ 1519), scheme to conceal (18 U.S.C. §§ 1001) and making false statements and representations (18 U.S.C. §§ 1001).

Part of the Espionage Act, section e of 18 U.S.C. §§ 793 carries a fine and/or up to 10 years in prison, and prohibits “willfully retain[ing]

” national defense information and “fail[ing] to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it.”

The sections of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512 Trump’s been charged under concern anyone who “uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person” or “engages in misleading conduct toward another person” with the intent to have them withhold a document “from an official proceeding,” and anyone who “corruptly” conceals records “with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” or “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.”

Trump has also been charged with conspiracy to commit obstruction under §§ 1512, and all his alleged violations under that law carry a punishment of a fine or up to 20 years in prison.

18 U.S.C. §§ 1519 concerns obstruction, threatening up to 20 years in prison or fines for anyone who “knowingly alters, destroys, mutilates, conceals, covers up, falsifies, or makes a false entry in any record, document, or tangible object” with the intent to “impede, obstruct, or influence” a federal investigation.

18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 criminalizes making false statements or “falsif[ying]

, conceal[ing], or cover[ing] up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact” as part of a federal government matter, which is punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison.

What To Watch For

Trump is set to appear in court at 3 p.m. Tuesday in Miami, where he’s expected to be booked, fingerprinted and formally arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman. The former president has said he will plead not guilty at the hearing. Goodman has barred any cameras or recording devices from the hearing, and journalists will not be able to have cell phones or any electronics inside the courtroom. That means there won’t be any news out of the hearing until after it finishes, though a transcript of the hearing will be released probably later on Tuesday. Once he’s arraigned, it’s still unclear when the case against Trump will go to trial—though the Southern District of Florida is known for having speedy trials, prosecutors have said—and the DOJ and Trump’s attorneys are likely to propose timelines during the hearing Tuesday.

Big Number

More than 11,000. That’s the number of White House documents federal investigators have seized from Mar-A-Lago—between the materials that Trump turned over himself and that were found there during a search—including 325 classified materials. Trump has defended himself by claiming he declassified materials—which experts have largely denounced as false, and the ex-president’s attorneys have not claimed in court—but most of the statutes he could be charged apply to both non-classified and classified materials, so Trump could still be charged even if that were the case.

Chief Critic

Trump has broadly denied any wrongdoing in the classified documents case, maintaining he was allowed to bring the documents back to Mar-A-Lago with him under the Presidential Records Act and declassified many of the materials. Experts have said Trump’s interpretation of that law is inaccurate and White House materials are legally the property of the National Archives. On Thursday, he called himself an “INNOCENT MAN.”

Key Background

Trump is now the first former U.S. president to face federal criminal charges, following state criminal charges in an unrelated New York case. The DOJ has been investigating Trump’s retention of White House documents since February 2022, after Trump delivered 15 boxes of records to the National Archives in January 2022 and the agency discovered he had held on to classified materials. Federal investigators subpoenaed Trump for all remaining classified documents in June 2022, but then searched Mar-A-Lago in August after having reason to believe Trump did not turn all the documents over. Investigators found an additional 103 classified documents during the search, raising suspicions that Trump had obstructed the investigation by not fully complying with the subpoena. Special Counsel Jack Smith was appointed to oversee the investigation—along with a separate probe into the aftermath of the 2020 election—in November to avoid any biases, given Trump is challenging President Joe Biden in the 2024 presidential race. Before the charges were reported, a string of recent news reports suggested Smith has obtained damaging information, including an audio recording from 2021 in which Trump acknowledged he kept a classified document, but did not have the power to declassify it now that he had left office. Prosecutors also got detailed descriptions from Trump attorney Evan Corcoran about his work on the case.