CBS News
Donald Trump indicted in documents probe. Here’s what we know so far.
Washington — Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on charges stemming from the federal investigation into his handling of sensitive government documents after he left the White House, a historic move that is likely to roil the ongoing 2024 presidential race. Two U.S. officials confirmed the charges to CBS News, as did Trump’s attorney.
In three posts to his account on Truth Social, Trump said attorneys with the Justice Department informed him he was indicted over the “boxes hoax” and he has been called to appear at the federal courthouse in Miami on Tuesday. Two sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News the arraignment.
“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!” he claimed.
U.S. Secret Service officials will meet Friday with Trump’s staff, security officers and Secret Service assigned to the former president’s detail to develop a plan for his travel and appearance in federal court, a law enforcement official said.
Trump charged with seven counts
The exact nature of the charges, the first to arise from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations, was not immediately clear. But three sources familiar with the case said the former president has been charged in a seven-count indictment involving the retention of national defense information, conspiracy and obstruction.
Smith, appointed in November 2022 by Attorney General Merrick Garland to oversee the probes, is also examining efforts to thwart the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 presidential election and the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Trump frustrated with what source says was “too much happy talk”
Trump is frustrated not just with the indictment but with people in his inner circle who reassured him for months that it was very unlikely to happen. As a source close to Trump put it, there was “too much happy talk for way too long” about what could happen.
Trump’s legal team strategizes
A second source close to Trump notes that one of his lawyers, Jim Trusty, “knows the special counsel” and is expected to try to work with attorneys John Rowley and Todd Blanche on the next step, a move to dismiss the charges and possibly a formal attempt to question Smith and the Justice Department’s chief of counterintelligence, Jay Bratt, who was one of the government’s key lawyers trying to recover boxes of documents from Trump’s team at Mar-a-Lago.
The Florida factor threw members of Trump’s team for a loop, but at the same time, they believe the Justice Department has been looking hard at jurisdictional challenges, since the documents at issue were in Florida, rather than in Washington, D.C.
An unprecedented step by the Justice Department
The decision to pursue an indictment of Trump is a remarkable and unprecedented step, marking the first time the Justice Department has brought federal charges against a former president. Trump’s attorneys met with Justice Department officials, including Smith, on Monday and discussed concerns about prosecutors’ efforts in the inquiry.
The charges sparked a fierce backlash from the former president’s Republican allies, who accused Garland of targeting Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Trump is currently the front-runner in the GOP primary contest to square off against President Biden. Shortly after revealing he had been charged, Trump made the indictment the center of a fundraising appeal to his supporters.
The indictment adds to the legal peril hanging over the former president amid his third bid for the White House. Trump is also facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York state court, and a trial in that case is set to begin March 25, 2024, in the thick of the presidential campaign. He pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
The chief prosecutor in Fulton County, Georgia, is also expected to announce this summer whether Trump or any of his allies will be charged following her investigation into efforts to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
The former president has denied any wrongdoing in connection with all of the investigations.
Regarding his handling of government documents, he has claimed at times that he declassified the sensitive documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago. Trump has also asserted the materials he kept were “personal” and therefore didn’t have to be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration when he left office, and were shielded by executive privilege.
The records at Mar-a-Lago
The new criminal charges stem from a 15-month-long effort by the federal government to retrieve records Trump had at his South Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, after his presidency ended in January 2021. While wrangling between Trump and the National Archives initially took place behind the scenes with secret subpoenas for the records and security camera footage, the dispute burst into public view on Aug. 8, 2022, when the FBI conducted a court-authorized search of the property.
Federal investigators seized 33 boxes of material, 13 of which contained just over 100 documents marked classified. Records made public following the FBI’s search, including the affidavit used to justify the search warrant and the warrant itself, indicated Trump was under investigation for the alleged removal or destruction of records, obstruction of justice and potentially violating a provision of the Espionage Act related to gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.
Before the batch of roughly 100 sensitive records was discovered, the National Archives retrieved 15 boxes containing presidential records from Mar-a-Lago in January 2022. Those boxes included 184 documents with classification markings, totaling over 700 pages.
The National Archives first attempted to recover what it considered to be sensitive government records before referring the matter to the Justice Department, and informed Trump’s lawyers at the outset that they were missing correspondence between Trump and both North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former President Barack Obama. It is unclear if those missing items were recovered in any of the searches and collections.
Representatives for Trump also handed over to Justice Department investigators in early June 2022 a folder containing 38 records marked classified after receiving a subpoena for “any and all” documents bearing classification markings that were in Trump’s possession at Mar-a-Lago.
In all, roughly 300 documents marked classified were recovered by federal investigators from the South Florida property after Trump left office. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said at the time her office was conducting a damage assessment to determine what national harm, if any, was incurred by the retention of the records.
The Justice Department’s investigation
The FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago sparked a legal battle mounted by Trump against the Justice Department over investigators’ access to the materials seized from his property, and the former president requested a special master, or independent third party, be named to review the documents.
That dispute limited the Justice Department’s probe for months after a special master was named and federal prosecutors sought access only to the roughly 100 documents with classification markings retrieved from Mar-a-Lago. The court fight landed before the Supreme Court, which in October declined to intervene in the dispute. A federal appeals court ordered an end to the special master’s review process in December.
The legal proceedings opened a normally secretive investigative process to the public, allowing prosecutors to detail the evidence they had collected in public court filings.
As part of the investigation into Trump’s alleged mishandling of sensitive government records, a federal grand jury heard testimony from numerous people close to the former president, including his lawyers Evan Corcoran and Timothy Parlatore. Parlatore, who left Trump’s legal team in May, ordered searches of the former president’s other properties for government documents, which yielded a handful of additional records.
Attorneys for Trump told the Justice Department they were unable to locate a classified document related to Iran that was sought by investigators, two people with knowledge of the situation confirmed to CBS News in early June. The document was discussed during a recorded meeting.
Another key witness, Trump aide and former White House valet Walt Nauta, told investigators last year he moved boxes inside Mar-a-Lago at Trump’s direction both before and after the subpoena was issued to hand over all documents with classification markings.
Multiple sources close to the investigation told CBS News that prosecutors focused on Nauta’s interactions with the boxes, but talks between his legal team and the Justice Department stalled after prosecutors took a more aggressive approach.
Several former and current U.S. Secret Service officials, including security officials from the Mar-a-Lago resort, also answered questions before the grand jury.
The wide scope of people who were called by investigators in Smith’s office to testify included numerous Trump aides and allies, current and former Mar-a-Lago employees, White House staffers and attorneys. Numerous grand juries convened in the federal courthouse in Washington collected evidence for months about Mar-a-Lago’s structure, Trump’s transition from the White House and conversations with his own lawyer, Corcoran, that a federal judge deemed were not covered by attorney-client privilege.
Amid the Justice Department’s investigation into the records found at Mar-a-Lago, it was revealed that documents bearing classification markings had been found at President Joe Biden’s former office and his Wilmington, Delaware, home.
The records dated back to Mr. Biden’s time as vice president and in the Senate, and Garland appointed a special counsel, Robert Hur, to oversee an investigation into the handling of the documents. The number of the documents discovered in Mr. Biden’s possession is far smaller than those recovered from Mar-a-Lago: the total number of known classified documents found since November is between 25 and 30. Additionally, the president’s lawyers, who found the materials, immediately notified the Archives and Justice Department of their discovery.
Mr. Biden also consented to searches of his Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, homes.
A “small number” of documents marked classified were also discovered at the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence in January and turned over to the FBI. The Justice Department investigated the matter and spoke with several aides as part of its probe, as well as Pence. Officials closed the inquiry without bringing criminal charges.
— Graham Kates, Fin Gomez, and Jeff Pegues contributed to this report.
One of 43 monkeys bred for medical research that escaped a compound in South Carolina has been recovered unharmed, officials said Saturday.
Many of the others are still located a few yards from the property, jumping back and forth over the facility’s fence, police said in a statement.
The Rhesus macaques made a break for it Wednesday after an employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee didn’t fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.
The monkeys on Friday were exploring the outer fence of the Alpha Genesis compound and were cooing at the monkeys inside. The primates continued to interact with their companions inside the facility on Saturday, which is a positive sign, the police statement said.
Yemassee Police Department
Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard relayed that efforts to recover all the animals will persist throughout the weekend and for as long as it takes, the statement said.
Westergaard told CBS News on Thursday that a caretaker inadvertently failed to secure a door at the enclosure, allowing the monkeys to roam free.
“It’s really like follow-the-leader. You see one go and the others go,” he said. “It was a group of 50 and 7 stayed behind and 43 bolted out the door.”
Westergaard acknowledged that it would be a long process to get them back and that they didn’t want to chase the monkeys because that would spook them and make them run away.
“We’ve got them very close,” he told CBS News. “This is all like what we want to see.”
The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds.
Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical and other researchers.
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound in Yemassee, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website.
A 31-year-old American tourist was killed while on vacation in Hungary’s capital, and the suspect, a 37-year-old Irish man, has been arrested, Hungarian police said Saturday.
The victim, Mackenzie Michalski was reported missing on Nov. 5 after she was last seen at a nightclub in central Budapest.
A Facebook group called “Find Mackenzie Michalski,” created on November 7, said Michalski, went by “Kenzie.” The group confirmed her death in a statement on Friday, thanking U.S. and Hungarian authorities for “their prompt attention, diligence, care, and consideration.”
Police launched a missing person investigation and reviewed security footage from local nightclubs where they observed Michalski with a man later identified as the suspect in several of the clubs the night of her disappearance.
Police detained the man, an Irish citizen, on the evening of Nov. 7. Investigators said that Michalski and the suspect met at a nightclub and danced before leaving for the man’s rented apartment. The man killed Michalski while they were engaged in an “intimate encounter,” police said.
The suspect, whom police identified by the initials L.T.M., later confessed to the killing but said it had been an accident. Police said that he had attempted to cover up his crime by cleaning the apartment and hiding Michalski’s body in a wardrobe before purchasing a suitcase and placing her body inside.
He then rented a car and drove to Lake Balaton, around 90 miles southwest of Budapest, where he disposed of the body in a wooden area outside the town of Szigliget.
Video released by police showed the suspect guiding authorities to the location where he had left the body. Police said the suspect had made internet searches before being apprehended on how to dispose of a body, police procedures in missing person cases, whether pigs really eat dead bodies and the presence of wild boars in the Lake Balaton area.
He also made an internet search inquiring about the competence of Budapest police.
Michalski’s parents are currently in Budapest, police told The Associated Press.
Friends posted condolences on the Facebook group of candles. Michalski was a nurse practitioner, the social media post said, who used “her humor, positivity, and limitless empathy to help heal her patients and encourage family and friends alike.”
Two years of record-breaking drought have dealt a heavy blow to what is arguably the Amazon’s most successful sustainable economy: the managed fishery for the giant pirarucu.
In Brazil´s Amazonas state, almost 6,000 riverine dwellers authorized to fish have reported a sharp drop in production and rising costs. They are demanding aid from the federal government and debating how to adapt to climate change.
Last year’s catch totaled 70% of the government-authorized quota of 100,443 fish. This year could see an even steeper decline, since many communities still haven´t been able to fish. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
Jorge Saenz / AP
Pirarucu managed fishing began in the Amazon 25 years ago in the Mamiraua region and has since expanded. It helped the Amazon’s largest fish escape risk of extinction and is now an important source of income for locals in 10 sustainable conservation units and eight Indigenous territories, where deforestation is close to zero.
Unlike other aquatic species of the Amazon, such as river dolphins, the pirarucu — also known as arapaima — historically have proven resilient to drought and climate change. But low water levels are making it extremely difficult for fishers to transport their catch from remote lakes to major rivers and onto cities.
It’s a mammoth task. The pirarucu, which can weigh up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds), lives in large lakes that during flood season are often connected to major rivers. Fishing typically occurs when water levels begin to recede, making it easier to trap the fish and transport them out in small boats or canoes. In several areas, however, water levels dropped so quickly that this connection was cut off before fishing could begin.
In the São Raimundo community in the Medio Jurua region, fishing is scheduled to start Saturday, a two-month delay — a common situation this season. As a result, Coletivo Pirarucu, an umbrella organization that represents 2,500 riverine and Indigenous families, has requested that the federal government extend fishing season until the end of January.
Even in large rivers navigation has become problematic, raising costs and uncertainty among fishermen. It usually takes three to four days to transport fish from Carauari municipality — a major pirarucu producer — to Manaus, the Amazon´s largest city. During the peak of the drought, the trip increased to 10 days, and the freight price has doubled.
Tough as pirarucu are, they are not immune to climate change, according to researcher Adalberto Luis Val from the National Institute for Amazonian Research. He says rising temperatures and severe droughts are exacerbating the “death trio” for all fish: warmer water, more CO2 and less oxygen.
The pirarucu has evolved to breathe air but is far from invincible.
“No fish can regulate body temperature,” Val said. “Then there’s water scarcity. As its level drops, you start to get a high amount of suspended material, leading to sludge buildup. It sticks to the gill area, blocking the processes that occur there.”
Fearing deteriorating conditions in the following decades, Coletivo Pirarucu contends that the fishermen should be entitled to compensation for losses caused by climate change. “This crisis not only challenges the resilience of communities but also highlights the urgent need for climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies,” the nonprofit stated in an open letter last week.
In an e-mail response, James Bessa, a federal official overseeing pirarucu management, said that Ibama, Brazil´s environmental agency, is working with other public bodies and local fishing associations to reduce the impact of extreme events like droughts and floods. He said there are plans to start scientific studies and closer monitoring to provide insights into ways to support riverine and Indigenous communities in sustaining their fishing activities.
Adevaldo Dias — a riverine leader who presides over the Chico Mendes Memorial, a nonprofit that assists traditional non-Indigenous communities — argues that adopting additional public policies to help the fishermen is a matter of climate justice.
“The Indigenous and riverine peoples have minimal impact on the environment,” Dias said. “We know that conserving the forest benefits both us and those outside it. And when extreme climate events occur, they are the most vulnerable.”
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