It's a national historic landmark, luxurious country club and presidential home all rolled into one, but Mar-a-Lago will go down in history as the scene of one of the most contentious legal battles in US history. Donald Trump, the first US president to face criminal charges and the owner of this now infamous estate, stands accused of 40 counts relating to the mishandling of classified government files at the Palm Beach property. His trial is set to begin on 14 May 2024, and if found guilty, the divisive character could face a lengthy prison stay. And that's to say nothing of the three separate indictments that have also been brought against him. Click or scroll on to find out more about the latest twists and turns taking place inside Trump's 'Winter White House', including allegations that the former president wrote to-do lists on classified documents...
In the latest shocking development, it has been alleged that Donald Trump "repeatedly wrote to-do lists" for his assistant on classified White House documents. According to ABC News, sources familiar with statements made to federal investigators by Molly Michael, Trump's former Special Assistant and Oval Office Coordinator (pictured here assisting Trump's move from the White House), have claimed that she received tasks and requests written on the back of notecards, which she later realised were "sensitive materials" with visible classification markings.
The notecards were reportedly used to brief the then-president about phone calls with foreign leaders. The sources also allege that although the notecards were not found by the FBI during their 8 August search of Mar-a-Lago, Molly Michael discovered them "beneath a drawer organiser" when she was tidying up her office the following day. She then assisted in delivering them to the FBI. Alarmingly, after Trump found out the FBI wanted to interview Michael, he allegedly said: "You don't know anything about the boxes." For her part, sources claim that Michael was said to have been concerned by the way in which her boss handled the repeated requests for all government documents being stored at Mar-a-Lago to be returned to the National Archives.
As investigations leading up to his trial next year intensify, there are signs that the former president may be looking for a financial helping hand from his supporters. Not long after Donald Trump hosted a $100,000-per-plate (£80.7k) Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for his 'broke' friend and former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, it now seems the former president will be holding not one but two separate fundraisers for himself in October. Currently ahead in the polls to become the Republican party's 2024 presidential nominee, Trump is reportedly planning one lavish bash to fund his election campaign, which will take place at Mar-a-Lago, while the second will be hosted by his sons, Eric and Don Jr., to help pay for his legal fees and those of his supporters, according to Bloomberg.
As charges pile up against the 45th president, his defence in the classified files case was recently struck a blow. Donald Trump's legal team had requested a secure facility be set up at Mar-a-Lago, where they would be able to review classified evidence. A secure area was previously established at the estate during Trump's presidency. However, a federal judge ruled on 13 September that Trump and his legal team are prohibited from disclosing classified information to anyone other than the court, “government personnel who hold appropriate security clearances and have been determined to have a need-to-know” and others “specifically authorized to access that information”, according to AP. While Trump's legal team was directed to use an accredited secure compartmented information facility to review all classified evidence, the protective order made no mention of Mar-a-Lago, suggesting his request has not been granted.
While there is more than enough room at Mar-a-Lago to set up such a facility – this cavernous ballroom could be one option – prosecutors were against the idea. “In essence, he is asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information (at least to the Government’s knowledge) who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence,” prosecutors said. “And of course, the Mar-a-Lago Club is even less suited than most residences to host a secure location, because it is a social club.” They found it "particularly striking" that Trump wanted to keep the files in the very location at which he is alleged to have wilfully retained the documents in the first place – some were even found piled up on the stage of this very room.
The former president continues to deny the long list of allegations against him, including the charge accusing him of conspiring to delete potentially incriminating security footage at Mar-a-Lago. "That's false," Trump told NBC's Meet the Press, which aired in the US on 17 September. While confirming he'll testify, he told host Kristen Welker that "the tapes weren't deleted." He went on to add: “In other words, there was nothing done to them. And they were my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them the tapes, I don’t think.”
In late July, the case against Donald Trump intensified when he was hit with a superseding indictment, replacing the initial indictment and adding three further charges and an additional co-defendant. In early August, just a day after appearing in a Washington, DC courtroom to deny charges relating to the Capitol riots indictment, which is a separate criminal case, Trump pleaded not guilty to the three new counts in South Florida. As well as being charged for conspiring to delete the Mar-a-Lago security footage, a further count of willfully retaining national defence information was also brought against Trump. While he chose not to appear in court, he entered a not guilty plea via his attorney on 4 August.
The latest person to be named in the case alongside former president Trump and his aide, Walt Nauta, is Mar-a-Lago's property manager, Carlos De Oliveira. The indictment alleges that the keen golfer and longtime Trump employee was caught on camera in June 2022 moving 30 boxes at the exclusive country club. According to the filing, he allegedly told the Mar-a-Lago IT director that "the boss" wanted the surveillance footage held on the servers to be deleted. Additionally, De Oliveira has been accused of draining the pool, which flooded the server room, as well as of making false statements to the FBI.
According to CNN, De Oliveira came to the US from Portugal to seek a better life. “He isn’t familiar with how the government here works and he was probably just being loyal to his boss who is paying his bills,” one family member told CNN. “The family feels like he got trapped.” His landlord, Tiberio Almeida, agreed, saying: “He’s not the kind of guy that would break the law. I don’t think he’s that type,” said Almeida. “I hope he does the right thing. If he knows anything, he should come clean.” De Oliveria appeared in court on 15 August and entered a not guilty plea. His co-defendant Walt Nauta was arraigned on 10 August and also pleaded not guilty.
News of the original Mar-a-Lago indictment broke on 8 June, though rumours had been swirling for days leading up to the announcement. The indictment was unsealed the following day. 31 of the 37 counts revealed at the time concerned the willful retention of national defence information – a crime under the Espionage Act. The other charges covered obstruction of justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, scheming to conceal and making false statements or representations. Trump's aide, Waltine Nauta, was named as a co-conspirator in the original indictment too, which describes him as the former president's "body man". He is still named in the more recent superseding indictment.
One part of the indictment proved particularly compelling: the photographs. Published alongside the document by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), the images allegedly depict boxes containing classified files stored in rooms across the Florida estate. This photo, taken in Mar-a-Lago's gilded ballroom, purportedly shows boxes of sensitive material stacked on the room's stage, where they're said to have stayed from January to March 2021. According to the indictment, the national defence information stored at the property was labelled "Top Secret" and "Secret" and allegedly included documents on US nuclear programmes, the defence and weapons capabilities of the US and foreign nations and details of US foreign attack plans.
One of the most incredulous images to emerge from the filing is this photo of a lavish bathroom in what's known as the resort's Lake Room. According to the indictment, the boxes were moved there from Mar-a-Lago's business centre in April 2021. In the image, boxes are shown stacked around the toilet, while above the drawn shower curtain, more boxes appear to have been piled up to the ceiling. Prosecutors noted that “tens of thousands of members and guests” passed through Mar-a-Lago between January 2021, when Trump left office, and August 2022.
The indictment alleges that Trump ordered the clearance of a storage room on the ground floor of Mar-a-Lago in May 2021. The boxes from the Lake Room were then relocated there, according to prosecutors. There are said to have been over 80 boxes in the space, which is pictured here. According to the indictment, the storage room was accessible via several exterior entrances and led out onto a pool terrace that was used by club members "through a doorway that was often kept open".
This is an image Trump's aide and co-conspirator in the indictment, Walt Nauta, allegedly sent to another employee on 7 December 2021, upon reportedly discovering that the contents of several boxes were strewn across the floor. One of the documents is marked "secret". Records from over seven government agencies are said to have been stored at the property, including outer space surveillance from the National Reconnaissance Office. Nauta, who was stationed at the White House as a valet with the United States Navy during Trump's time in office, became the former president's personal aide at Mar-a-Lago in August 2021.
Between November 2021 and January 2022, it's alleged that Nauta and another Mar-a-Lago employee, now thought to be new co-defendant Carlos De Oliveira, transferred a number of boxes from the storage room to Trump's residence for him to review. On 18 January 2022, prosecutors claim that Nauta and a fellow worker collected 15 boxes from Trump's home on the estate and delivered them to a commercial truck for return to the National Archives and Records Agency. Following the return of the files, the FBI opened a criminal investigation in March 2022, and a grand jury subpoenaed Trump to return all materials with classified markings in May 2022.
In the wake of the subpoena, prosecutors alleged that at Trump's direction, Nauta removed 64 boxes from the storage room and brought them to Trump's residence between May and June 2022, where they reportedly were kept in Pine Hall, an entry room in the Trump family suite. Prosecutors claim that this occurred days prior to the arrival of an attorney on 2 June of the same year, who reviewed the boxes in the storage room.
When the FBI conducted a search of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, they also found 27 classified files in Trump's office. During the period when the boxes are alleged to have been stored there, Forbes claims that Trump hosted a list of high-profile names in his office. These include the likes of former British right-wing politician Nigel Farage, who is pictured here in Trump's office in April 2022, American actor Ray J, former member of South Korea's parliament Lee Dong-sup and former US general Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators in 2017 and was later pardoned by Trump.
Trump is also said to have taken some of the boxes to his New Jersey club, Bedminster, in May 2021. Bedminster is a crucial location in the indictment as it was allegedly where Trump shared classified documents with others on two separate occasions in 2021. In one instance that prosecutors say occurred in August or September of that year, Trump reportedly showed a classified map related to a then-ongoing military operation to a member of his political action committee. Footage has also surfaced of country rock star Kid Rock claiming Trump showed him what he believed to be top-secret maps during a visit to the White House in 2017 too.
The charges against Trump are extremely serious and jail time for the former president is a real possibility if he's found guilty. According to Politico, the maximum total sentence he could receive for this specific indictment is 450 years in prison, with each count carrying between five and 20 years behind bars. However, even if Trump did receive the maximum, these sentences would potentially run concurrently, meaning the former president would likely serve no more than 20 years in total. Each of the 40 counts also carries a fine of $250,000 (£202k), putting the maximum final bill at around $10 million (£8m).
Judge Aileen Cannon has been assigned Trump's case for the time being, though this may be liable to change in the future. Cannon was appointed to the bench by Trump when he was serving as the 45th US president. During the investigation in 2022, Cannon drew criticism when she temporarily prevented FBI agents from examining a number of classified documents obtained during the search of Mar-a-Lago and granted Trump's request to install a special master to filter the evidence instead. Her ruling was ultimately overturned by a federal appeals court.
Trump's reaction to the news of his indictment has been anything but subdued. He took to his platform Truth Social to berate the "corrupt Biden Administration" and deem the investigation "the greatest witch hunt of all time". On 10 June 2023, he also gave a fiery speech at the North Carolina GOP Convention, where he reaffirmed his innocence and accused "radical left Democrats" of conspiring against him, reported The Independent. So how did we get here? A number of key developments that emerged in recent months led to Trump's historic indictment...
In early June 2023, a two-minute audio clip surfaced on CNN's Anderson Copper 360 TV show, in which Trump appears to acknowledge keeping secret government papers. The recording was reportedly made in July 2021 during a meeting at Trump's Bedminster estate between the former president, aides and a writer and publisher working on an autobiography of Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff. In the tape, Trump discusses a potential US attack on Iran. He's then heard to riffle through a pile of documents, before indicating: "These are the papers". He goes on to say: "This was done by the military and given to me... see as president I could have declassified it. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret." The audio recording is listed in the indictment against Trump.
According to CNN, details of what is thought to be the same meeting are referenced in Meadows' autobiography, which was published in 2021. Mark Meadows is pictured here. In his memoir, Trump allegedly refers to a document he says was compiled by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. The book claims that Trump: "Recalls a four-page report... it contained the general's own plan to attack Iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged President Trump to do more than once during his presidency." Trump refuted the allegations on his platform Truth Social, claiming that special counsel Jack Smith "illegally leaked and "spun" a tape and transcript of me which is actually an exoneration".
Meanwhile, information also came to light alleging that Trump may have prepared for government searches of Mar-a-Lago. Sources who spoke on condition of anonymity with The Washington Post claim that Trump was anticipating a search of his Florida estate long before the Justice Department served him with a subpoena back in May 2022. Prior to this date, a new report alleges that Trump and his aides carried out "dress rehearsals" at the property to practice relocating government papers.
The cooperation of a mystery Mar-a-Lago employee also helped federal prosecutors' case as reported in early May 2023. The informant purportedly handed investigators a photo of the storage room in which most of the classified documents were kept, according to The New York Times. The image is thought to have been one of the six photographs published as part of the US Department of Justice's indictment.
The criminal charges that Trump faces hinge, in part, on whether the relocation of classified files from the White House to Mar-a-Lago was merely a mistake or a calculated move. A letter from the National Archives to Trump's counsel, obtained by CNN, concerning the correct declassification process, makes for interesting reading. Archivist Debra Steidel Wall wrote to Trump: "The 16 records in question all reflect communications involving close presidential advisers, some of them directed to you personally, concerning whether, why, and how you should declassify certain classified records."
It's not been plain sailing for Trump's legal team either. In May 2023, lawyer Timothy Parlatore stepped down from Trump's legal team. In an interview with CNN, Parlatore revealed that the reason for his exit was due to a clash with another Trump lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, pictured here on the far right. Parlatore alleged that Epshteyn "attempted to interfere" with the legal team's searches of Trump properties and that at times, he prevented other lawyers from conveying information to Trump. Epshteyn has been by the former president's side since he joined his 2016 campaign as an aide.
In another development, it emerged that Trump's legal team sent a letter to the House and Senate intelligence committees in defence of the former president in April 2023. The attorneys characterised the former president's retention of government documents as accidental, claiming White House staff likely swept paperwork from offices into boxes at random during the chaotic departure of the Trump administration. Yet they also alleged that foreign leader briefings were reportedly among the classified papers taken to Mar-a-Lago.
The letter claims the government documents in question are from the initial 15 boxes that were turned over to the National Archive in January 2022. Two Trump lawyers received permission to review the contents of the boxes in early 2023. They claim that they discovered placeholder pages where classified documents were once stored: "The vast majority of the placeholder inserts refer to briefings for phone calls with foreign leaders that were located near the schedule for those calls,” the lawyers wrote in their letter. Prior to this, the Justice Department had never revealed the specific nature of the first batch of boxes to be turned over to authorities.
Prior to charges being brought against Trump concerning the alleged mishandling of classified documents, the special counsel honed in on one particular document. According to The New York Times, federal investigators asked witnesses if Trump ever showed a sensitive map, which he allegedly took with him to Florida when he left the White House, to aides and visitors. The map reportedly contains confidential intelligence information, say the publication's sources. It's not clear if the map is the same as the one in the indictment, which claims that Trump showed it to a person without proper clearance at Bedminster, his New Jersey club.
Back when investigators were gathering evidence to support charges of obstruction, which have since been brought against the former president, they focused on the relocation of a number of sensitive file boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Allegations concerning the boxes in question first came to light in October 2022, two months after the FBI raid on Trump's Florida home. Walt Nauta, Trump's employee and his co-conspirator in the indictment, reportedly told FBI agents at the time that Trump had asked for boxes of records on the property to be moved, both before and after he was served with a subpoena to turn them over to the government in May 2022. Nauta denied moving sensitive information, before admitting to relocating a number of boxes from a storage room at Trump's request. According to The Washington Post, proof of the removals was allegedly caught by surveillance cameras and Nauta and his new co-defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, were captured on CCTV transferring the boxes from a storage area.
On 8 June 2023, 37 felony counts were officially brought against Trump relating to his alleged mishandling of government records, with a further three counts added in late July 2023. But where did it all begin? The raids in August 2022 came about after two unnamed sources confirmed that former president Donald Trump brought extremely sensitive presidential documents to his Florida resort, according to reports by The Washington Post. They say that records taken from the White House were clearly labelled as 'classified' and 'top secret', sparking questions over whether Trump has broken the law through his handling of government files.
Pictured here, aides carry boxes to Marine One before the then-outgoing President Trump departed the White House at the start of 2021. Prior to the raids, officials from the National Archives and Records Administration had already removed 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022. Under the Presidential Records Act, such documents are the property of the US government and should have been turned over when Trump left office in January 2021.
When the FBI executed their search warrant on Mar-a-Lago on Monday 8 August 2022, Donald Trump was reportedly at Trump Tower in New York. "My beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents," Trump said in a statement at the time. In the wake of the raid, the former president also revealed that agents had broken into his safe. But what did they uncover?
Returning home to Florida following the raid in August, Donald Trump took to Truth Social: “Arrived in Florida last night and had a long and detailed chance to check out the scene of yet another government ‘crime’, the FBI’s Raid and Break-In of my home, Mar-a-Lago,”. “I guess they don’t think there is a Fourth Amendment anymore, and to them, there isn’t. In any event, after what they have done, the place will never be the same.” Going on to say that it “was ‘ransacked, and in far different condition than the way I left it,” he said that FBI agents “didn’t even take off their shoes in my bedroom.”
Meanwhile, insight concerning the execution of the Mar-a-Lago raid has proven interesting. America First Legal, a group run by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller, reportedly discovered that the Biden administration played a part in giving authorisation to the FBI to carry out the search. They obtained the information through a Freedom of Information Request. It revealed that the FBI initially got hold of Trump's records via a special access request, which was granted by Biden's office. America First Legal is now asking the National Archives and Records Administration to hand over all their material concerning Biden's involvement with the raid.
The Epoch Times reported that while the agents searched his home, Trump and family members watched them via CCTV cameras from New York. Thanking his supporters, Trump wrote: “Thank you to all of the many people who greeted me last night on my way from the Airport to Mar-a-Lago. I will never forget the great people of this Country. MAGA!!!” During the raid, the former president has also claimed the FBI took his medical records, tax documents and even passports.
The Independent gave a full breakdown of what was taken in the FBI raid, and it included "over 100 classified" and, astonishingly, "nearly 11,179 government-owned documents". In the wake of the raids, Donald Trump’s spokesperson accused The Washington Post of "colluding" with the FBI after it reported that the former president kept details of a foreign country’s nuclear capabilities at his Mar-a-Lago home. Taylor Budowich, a former Trump aide, took to Twitter at the time saying that The Washington Post: "Continues to serve as the propaganda arm of the Biden administration, and instead of operating openly and honestly, they collude in never-ending leaks and lies at the expense of the integrity of the FBI and DOJ.”
In September 2022, it was reported that FBI agents had found a top-secret document describing a foreign government’s defences, including its nuclear capabilities, when they searched Mar-a-Lago. According to The Washington Post, anonymous sources "familiar with the matter" alleged that at least one of the classified documents recovered from Trump's Florida property includes details of Iran's missile programme. It's considered among the most sensitive pieces of information retrieved in the raid.
Other classified documents reportedly uncovered at Mar-a-Lago are said to describe covert US intelligence work "aimed at China", says The Washington Post. Here, Trump is pictured in 2017 during his time in office, alongside China's President Xi Jinping. The scope of the documents regarding China and Iran is unclear, however, if these highly sensitive papers got into the wrong hands, the fallout could be catastrophic. Not only could any diplomatic efforts be derailed, but in some cases, agents could be placed at risk and sources compromised.
Trump took legal action in August 2022 following the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago, which he labelled at the time as a “shockingly aggressive move”. The lawsuit aimed to stop the ongoing investigation into the government files seized from his home. Presiding Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the legal challenge, citing “lack of jurisdiction”. The lawsuit had requested the installation of a third-party individual to assess the documents and remove any privileged information. Consequently, special master Judge Raymond Dearie was dismissed on 8 December 2022. This was a catastrophic move for Trump, as it enabled the Justice Department to examine all the confiscated records taken from his Palm Beach home without an independent arbitrator filtering out privileged information.
At the end of 2022, Donald Trump's legal team enlisted independent investigators to conduct a number of searches of his properties to ensure all sensitive documents had been handed over to the authorities. According to The Washington Post, the investigators found at least two items with classified markings in a storage unit in a private facility in West Palm Beach, Florida, not far from Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. Shortly after the discovery, the sensitive materials were submitted to the FBI, according to the newspaper's sources.
Pictured here is part of the FBI's search warrant affidavit from the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago. According to emails from the General Services Administration, a government arm that helps outgoing presidents adjust to life after the White House, the agency assisted in securing the lease on the storage locker in July 2021. It was reportedly used to store items weighing over 3,000 pounds from a Northern Virginia office used by Trump administration staffers. Speaking to The Washington Post, a source with knowledge of the contents alleged that the unit held an assortment of uncatalogued items: “It was suits and swords and wrestling belts and all sorts of things... To my knowledge, he (Trump) has never even been to that storage unit. I don’t think anyone in Trump World could tell you what’s in that storage unit.”
The legal bills of witnesses involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation were also been put under scrutiny. The Washington Post uncovered filings that revealed that Trump's Save America PAC has reportedly provided financial support for a number of key witnesses. Trump's committee is alleged to have paid more than $120,000 (£96.8k) to Brand Woodward Law, who represents some of the individuals giving testimony in the case. It's not against the law for third parties to foot legal bills, as long as the client is aware of the situation, however, there have been some concerns that this assistance could sway testimony. There is no accusation of wrongdoing. A federal grand jury is currently looking into the Save America PAC's fundraising practices as part of a separate investigation.
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