military attack and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign track and says the unauthorized disclosure of this information could put at risk the national security of the united states. >> that is so incredibly significant because actually just last night here on cnn, tim parlatory, until recently part of the trump legal team, started to form ulate that the nature o the documents matter, and he was right, but suggested that perhaps old schedules that would have been top secret, classified at a certain point, would not rise to the occasion. this indictment seems to lay out some very clear instances of real information that was related to national security, that was not only in large quantities stored in the former president's actively used social club, but stored in public,

strewn all over the floor. employees texting back and forth about what to do with them, about where to move them. and trump when faced with the prospect of needing to return them allegedly suggesting to his attorneys to not be truthful with the federal government. this is a bombshell. >> absolutely. you know, laura coates was talking last night about the false statements, the allegation of false statements. if you go through not just the what the president had, the details of how very muchin the realm of national security many of them were, the amount of them, but then also the concealment and the making false statements about having them and so forth. there is also great detail in here with how he and more specifically his valet misled

the department justice and misled their lawyers and so forth. and so it is, again, not just a case of him taking this information which maybe he could have argued i didn't mean it, maybe could have argued like mike pence did, like joe biden did, like others did, i'll give it back. this was part of a large number of papers that i took when i left the white house. it was the no, i am intentionally not giving it back to you, and i'm giving you statements that are not true. and that falls into, again, false statements but also the conspiracy charge. >> and part of -- trump makes a political argument when he's in legal trouble, and his political argument, last night he labels everything, labels or gives them a nickname, boxes hoax, because he wants you to think this is not important, this is not serious, that everybody does it. when you read the penalty sheet that comes in any federal indictment, this is where the gravity becomes clear. counts 1 through 31, willful

holding, each of those, 310 years in prison. count 32, conspiracy to obstruct justice, maximum term of imprison. 20 years. with holding a record, maximum, 20 years. count 34, corruptly concealing a document or record, maximum term of imprisonment 20 years. concealing a document in an investigation, maximum imprison. 220 years. false statements and representation, maximum term, five years. those are the 37 counts against donald trump. while -- not so -- independent until proven guilty he gets his day in court but simply do not believe that this is trivial. what they lay out is of incredible consequence and gravity. >> very much so. we've reported at length about the audiotape of trump meeting with the people who were working on this book, for his former chief of staff. there is another meeting described in this indictment. in august or september of 2021, when trump was no longer president, and the indictment says that trump was discussing

an ongoing military operation in a country that's not named. he was showing a political action committee representative a classified map of that country and told that person that he should not be showing the map to that person because that person obviously did not have a security clearance. so it's not just the one incident that we know about. another meeting, another document showing it to people who were not authorized to see it. and interestingly throughout this document, you see evidence of the doj laying out not just what trump was doing after he left the presidency, but evidence from during his presidency that trump was well aware of the process and the importance of secrecy when it comes to classified documents. it has statements that he made back in 2016, statements that he made back in 2017 about how he would enforce the laws as it relates to classified documents. and then when it applied to him, when he was no longer president,

it seems based on these allegations that he put all that to the side, threw it out the window, and did not act on his own knowledge of how important it is to keep these documents secret. >> i just want to echo your point about the gravity issue. look at more of the details again. there's a catalog, an inventory, if you will, of some of the documents that they recovered. donald trump wants to say it's a box hoax, his attorney said they're schedules that maybe said something classified at the time but then they're not so. you see the first picture we have of documents. those are classified record. whatever your politics, those are property of the united states government. that's the ballroom that they talk about. these documents belong in a secure location under lock and key with a guard. there they are casually stacked on a stage in one of the so-called elegant ballrooms as donald puts it at his mar-a-lago resort. again, they're government secrets. what's in those boxes, the government details it in this indictment. here are just some of them. document concerning white house intelligence briefing related to foreign countries. document concerning white house

intelligence briefing related to foreign countries. document concerning military capabilities of a foreign country and the united states with handwritten annotation in black. document concerning white house intelligence briefing related to foreign countries. document concerning the nuclear capabilities of a foreign country. document concerning white house intelligence briefing related to foreign countries. concerning communications with a leader of foreign country. document concerning military capabilities of a foreign country. document concerning military attacks by a foreign country. document concerning military capabilities -- you can go on and on. when they try to tell you this is trivial, updated document concerning military activity. covered the white house for ten years, this is the most sensitive stuff in the united states government at a time of great global turmoil. it belongs under lock and key in the united states government. and what this alleges, and again i'll say it again, donald trump gets his day in court, is that he willfully, knowingly, recklessly took it and knowingly, willfully, recklessly stored it as photos show. then asked other people to lie

about it when the government said could we please have those back. >> let's look at the summary of what we were talkinging about. trump office, number of documents, 27. classification markings. six top secret, 18 secret, three confidential. storage room, 75 documents. one top secret, 36 secret, 28 confidential. and it's exactly what you were saying about america's national security. but it's also the question of the rule of law. and it is so noteworthy that you've heard the republicans who have been coming to his defense before they've read any of this talking about the rule of law and going after the fbi and going after the doj. and it is going to be very interesting to see how they get themselves out of those statements reading this. the former president, this is an indictment, he is going to be tried just like any citizen.

assuming that it doesn't get it thrown out. it is going to go through due process as it should. he has not been convicted, not even close. this is the beginning of the process. but this is incredibly detailed, and it's hard to see how republicans argue that there is no rule of law here when it seems as though the allegations are that the former president took the rule of law and said it doesn't apply to me. >> and as we go back to you on that point, the former president was on a radio interview the other day saying sure he fought this because he didn't do anything wrong and they were suggesting he obstructed nothing. if you read this catalog and look at the photos, it is hard to make the case. he can argue the law but it's hard to make the case that there was nothing, and then there's damn -- again, allegations -- but pretty damning testimony from the text messages of his own people about that obstruct part. >> to other people with security

clearances, i with had one for time, you did, outside of a secure location, let alone bring it home to your place of residence. >> yes. and also we're seeing trump in his own words as described by at least one of his then attorneys. if we look at page 21 here, it says that on may 23rd of 2022 trump was meeting with -- known as trump attorney one and trump attorney two. do we have a sense of who that is? >> evan corcoran is attorney one. it's clear from the context here that attorney one is evan corcoran. >> so he's there at mar-a-lago, it says, to discuss the response to this may 11th subpoena. and trump attorney one, evan corcoran, and trump attorney two tell trump that they need to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena. they need to provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena. trump in sum and substance made the following statements among

others as memorialized by trump attorney one evan corcoran. a, i don't want anybody looking. i don't want anybody looking through my boxes. i really don't. i don't want you looking through my boxes. b, well, what if we -- what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them? c, wouldn't it be better if we just told them we don't have anything here? d, well, look, isn't it better if there are no documents? and then going to the -- it appears to the same meeting, he describes in sum and substance the following story as memorialized by trump attorney one, evan corcoran, clearly referring to hillary clinton having to do with the deletion of her emails. attorney, it says in brackets, he was great, he did a great job. you know what he said? he said that it -- it was him, that he was the one who deleted all her emails, the 30,000 emails, because they basically dealt with her scheduling and

her going to the gym and her having beauty appointments, and he was great. and he -- so she didn't get in any trouble because he said that he was the one who deleted them. so much there to go through. >> lock her up is the chant that we heard so often during the trump rallies during the 2016 election. and so what the former president seems obsessed with stories about hillary clinton, and he's also obsessed with lawyers who are willing to do anything to protect their clients. this is a feature of donald trump over the years. so that story is one that you know is a very trumpian f you t for me, if you go and you say that you did the search and -- you didn't find anything, the fbi's going to go aware, and nobody's going to get in trouble. >> expressing admiration it seemed for the way hillary clinton's lawyers protected her. laura coates, lawyer present here, speaking about corcoran based on what you see in this document, is corcoran testifying

against the president? >> yeah. he did already to a grand jury. the idea -- first of all, those statements were the equivalent of you got a nice place here, hate to see it burn down. that was the equivalent of what you heard him saying. the suggestions were not subtle. this complaint includes statements about trump wanting to see photographs of the boxes. there is actual documentation that he was aware about the breadth of it. the statements that were made -- remember, it was extraordinary for a judge to say that an attorney could testify and speak about the communications with his client. why, though? because the judge in that case, in that instance said we're not going to honor it if it's a crime fraud exception. what does that mean? you cannot say that i don't get to tell you anything because you're a lawyer and you're my client if it's furtherance of a crime. to bring the point home, look through, page eight, everyone can follow along, the types of agency documents that were

implicated. the cia, the department of defense, the nsa, the national geospacial intelligence agency, the national reconnaissance office, department of energy, department of state, and bureau of intelligence and research to name a few. >> and why are these documents that are so important to national security because they have to do with weapons capabilities of the u.s. and foreign countries, u.s. nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the u.s. and allies to military attack, and plans for possible retaliation. but when you -- >> you can't come up with a more sensitive list. >> you cannot. >> one quick point just to follow up on what laura was saying. these -- these notes that you just read, this is memorialized by evan corcoran. the former president's attorney. and a lot of people are astonished that why on earth is a lawyer memorializing his client's thoughts like this, right? again, they know -- they're under subpoena, they know there's some kind of investigation. why are you doing that?

also, by the way, evan corcoran is still on the president's legal team. he's still representing the president on the january 6th investigation. so it's just -- there's so many questions that occur. >> you know -- >> perusing this and broke details prior to the document. now you have the document. what have you learned that you didn't know prior? >> i just wanted to talk to what evan -- it's our understanding that evan corcoran was recording into a device each time he had a conversation with trump, how they got his notes. members of the legal team were curious, why are you recording everything that was happening at that time. there were questions about whether he may have wanted to write a book at some time. but they were surprised that he was recording all of his notes. >> could that also be self-protect sniff. >> absolutely. could absolutely -- we saw a lot of people early in the administration, jim comben and others -- jim comey and others, making memos to protect themselves. >> and credibility, of course. the more contemporaneous it is the more your credibility is no

longer an issue, trying to recall events -- >> exactly. >> you want to do it immediately. >> he didn't sign the attestation. >> talk about protecting yourself. you guys did a great job of laying out how sensitive this material was. but my takeaways here, they recovered over 300 classified documents, right, talking volume, that's what distinguishes this. of course in the case of the current president. and they were stored in everything from a ballroom to a bathroom to a shower to an office space to his bedroom to a st storage room. there's a photo where there's information only to be shared with the five, australia, canada, the united kingdom, spilled out on a box, as we have in an attic, old college papers. these are classified secrets spread across the floor of a storage room and there were secrets in a bathroom, a ballroom. the sloppiness in terms of storage, it's breathtaking. again, we've been reporting on this for some time. this is surprising. >> not only that, we know that

mar-a-lago is not a fortress. >> it's a hotel. >> this is also a place -- a target for foreign adversaries. and we have seen that certainly in the past. but john and dana, particularly when you look at these statements from the former president memorialized by his then-attorney, it's him pressing in sort of graduating way. at first it's the -- i don't want anyone looking through my boxes. well, what if we just don't respond? well, what if we don't have anything here? what if there are no documents? clearly things he is asking his attorney to do that he should not be doing. >> we have memorialized here something that had been reported but now it's written in paper, in the document, the president granting that he no longer had the power to declassify. reading on page 16, trump, as president i could have declassified it, staffer, yeah, laughter. trump, now i can't, you know, but this is still a secret. staffer, yeah, laughter. now we have a problem. trump, isn't that interesting?

dana and john? lot to digest. >> and you're making i think a critical point as people walk through this and study more of this, viewers watching this in the context of where we are which happens to be not only in unprecedented legal case against a former president but happening in the early days of a presidential campaign where he's the republican party frontrunner. it's important to look at what donald trump says, that everybody is out to get him, and focus on the point you made and the language in these documents. those are his words. those are his aides. those are his people. that is his house. when you look at the pictures here. and again, just as you go through the details -- and forgive me, but this is just a fact, there is hypocrisy in the republican ranks if you roll back the camera, the tape, to how they treated hillary clinton and her email server. i'm not here to defend hillary clinton and her email server at home. that was a mistake, and she should have known better. but -- but that's like lower case a compared to what you read in this indictment as you go through it for the context which

is important. just in the documents that trump did return, in the first wave when he did return documents, in those 15 boxes, 14 contained documents with classified markings, 197, 98 marked secret, 30 marked top secret. it's just reprehensive behavior, and candidate donald trump said he would not stand for it, would not happen when he was president. and you just read through the details here just about the number, the scope, the gravity, national security importance of these documents, the reckless sloppiness, and then to his aides, well, nauta who's indicted, saying things to the fbi that his own text messages and the other employees at mar-a-lago proved are just not true. >> and it goes to the question -- and maybe this is something that jack smith will address -- why? why did he want to keep all of these? who was the reason for wanting to keep these? was it just for -- is there something in there that suggests it? >> i think, look, in the past his aides have said he felt they were his or he declassified them so they were his to take.

or you know, they were mostly mementos. they weren't serious documents, and that's why he wanted to keep them. i think what these instances, though, especially of him showing documents to other people, waving them around, talking about them, it shows a certain amount of hubris. it shows somebody who wanted to take sort of the spoils of his one-term presidency with him and to be age to brag about them when he left. >> now you can see -- >> this photo you can see. you can see this is a bathroom. there's a little confusion -- i think in the earlier photos, perhaps not surprising, it's marble and gold, trumpian style. but these photos show you the carelessness with which these boxes were moved throughout mar-a-lago. >> talk about a picture saying it all. >> yeah. >> i don't want to leave the impression -- because one of the things that this indictment really lays out is that there was a period of time when trump spent meticulously going through these boxes himself. and they do that to say that it wasn't just that the boxes were

being stored in a ballroom, in an active social club, but that trump also insisted on going through them, and ralph nauta was part of the process of ensuring he knew which boxes trump had gone through. at one point one of trump's attorneys, evan corcoran, presumptively, is going through the boxes, finds a bunch of classified documents, puts them in a folder, and tries to seal up the folder. he has -- memorializes then a conversation with trump in which trump says that he made a funny motion as though, well, okay, why don't you just take them with you to the hotel room, and if there's anything really bad in there, like you know pluck it out. and that was the motion that he made. he made a motion to suggest to corcoran that he should pluck out the really bad stuff, the things that were highly classified. this is really significant for people who are watching, who have been through two indictments of donald trump. you know, the case in new york. donald trump is not a person who spend a lot of time writing things down.

he doesn't email really. he doesn't spend a ton of time texting. so when you're trying to understand his state of mind, the recollections of his attorney in real time are incredibly significant. >> and paul and evan, on that note, we haven't mentioned the evan corcoran of it all. and evan corcoran is the trump attorney who went and testified, the attorney/client privilege was pierced, which is something that very, very rarely happens. given everything you guys have reported on this, what you're reading now and what abby was talking about, how much do you think that his testimony played into what we're seeing in these indictments? >> it's clearly incredibly significant. we knew that when a judge allowed attorney/client privilege to be pierced -- they needed an exception here. they needed to convince a judge that evan corcoran's advice had been used potentially in furtherance of a crime.

that's a pretty significant thing for a judge to allow. and from our reporting we learned a little bit about the kinds of information that he had in his notes. we knew that the former president had asked if there were any other options besides cooperating with the subpoena. now some folks on the former president's liam team argue to us, look, he was just trying to get good legal advice. clearly based on the facts here in this indictment, what evan corcoran and this other attorney provided shows it was much more than that. he was asking them to obstruct this investigation. incredibly significant evidence from evan corcoran. >> and the idea really that the former president was hoping to use these lawyers as his shield, and in the end what this has done is really kind of sealed what the prosecution is trying to say, right, which is that the former president knew he had those documents, he was being cavalier with documents that -- if you look at that list of the levels of classification, this is not small things.

then he also was trying to essentially ignore a subpoena from a federal judge, a judge who had ordered the former president to turn over all of these documents that he had no right to continue to hold. so that's one of the things that comes across from this is that he's looking at all of these people, he's used to all of these people -- he definitely had experience when he was at the white house to have all of these people who essentially took bullets for him to protect him. and that's what he was going for here. and it appears it ended up backfiring. >> yeah. and lawyer/fixer is a common title in trump world. now a lot of these lawyers have ended up needing lawyers of their own. evan corcoran is just one of the attorneys who has testified in this investigation. he had attorney/client privilege, it was pierced there. but other attorneys including tim parlatory and others have testified in this investigation. another aspects of how extraordinary this probe is. multiple attorneys testifying in this probe. >> i want to read through a bit

of it just to get to the point that as people listen out there, and you watch photographs, again, these are documents that belong locked up. they belong locked up under key and secure. some of them, sure, were classified at the time and maybe today or when photos were taken in the months before this, maybe there is a debate about classification. but as we've gone through maps, details, foreign military operations, foreign military nuclear capabilities, you know, i dare any republican, anybody to come forward and say these should not be left under lock and key in the most secure place because of the secrets. and if you're going to declassify them, that should be done through a process because of how sensitive they were at least at one time. but evan and paul, as you go through it, again, you get to the point here that you read the indictment, these are donald trump's own people, and frankly what the government alleges and they need to prove it in a court of law, are the lies. the next day on june 3rd, 2022, trump attorney three signed a certification as the custodian of the records, took it to mar-a-lago to provide to the department of justice and the fbi.

and that certification said that -- stated among other things a diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved to the white house in florida. the search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena to locate documents, any documents aukum the certification. in other words, you ask for documents, we looked, here they r. you're getting them back. it goes on to say false. because trump had directed nauta to move the boxes before the trump attorney came through. so the challenge here is to prove this to a jury down the road, months and months from now, most likely. but if you read this document, you know, the trump and his legal team have tried to make this it's not a big deal, maybe it was a misunderstanding, the president thought he could have these things, it's not that important. what's this big fuss about? line by line by line of this indictment lays out calculation, deliberate, misconduct including lies and then asking people to lie. >> one of the things that's going to be important to see in the coming months, frankly, this

process is going to take, is the willingness of the justice department to -- and the federal government to declassify some of these documents because, look, having these papers and descriptions of them, they're going to be able -- bring in people from the cia, the people who created these documents. they're going to come in, and they're going to attest that these documents are still classified. they're going to have to testify about generally what these are. but you know, if you really -- if you want to make sure the american public knows how serious this is, i think the challenge will be for the justice department to at least declassify some of these documents so that everybody can see it. and you know, that's always the struggle with these cases. it's one reason why very rarely do they bring these cases in court. they try -- they struggle with the idea of well these things are so sensitive that we can't bring it to court because we can't declassify it.

so the challenge here will be for the justice department to decide are there some of these documents, what is it, 30-something documents, that they cite here, that they believe they can bring down declassification. and then show this to a jury to bring home the point that this is the kind of things that the former president put at risk with his cavalier attitude in the treatment of these classified documents. it's going to be a challenge. >> i think publicly the former president's attorneys have been overly confident that not only would they not charge their client, the former president, but also that they wouldn't charge walt nauta. i was told without nauta cooperating with the government they won't have a case. we see obviously the former president and walt nauta have been charged here. but they appear to have an extraordinary amount of evidence both in audio recordings, they clearly have text messages, they have other cooperating witnesses. it may be that they were just kbleem incorrect -- completely incorrect, they could bring a case without walt nauta.

but it will be interesting to see if they can successfully prosecute this if walt nauta continues to refuse to cooperate with the government. he's been under an enormous amount of pressure as we've been reporting for months. they have been trying to flip him. they have talented him even on potentially charging him with false statements for lying to the fbi. something very smart people, martha stewart even, have been charged with. but it was unclear if he was going to be charged today. he's charged. it will be interesting to see if he stays loyal to the president. >> what do you think the chances that walt nauta decide after he's been indicted, what are the chances he thinks that perhaps, you know, it's time for him to come in and talk to the fbi and cooperate? we don't know, right, that sometimes happens in these cases. >> yeah. >> but given the fact that, as you pointed out, for months he has resisted that, and in fact he's still -- he's with the president today at bedminster. i don't think the chances are great. >> yeah. >> evan, you use the word cavalier in the way that he -- the former president appears to

have dealt with these highly classified documents. there's a lot in here. i want to highlight one example. it's on page 14, there is a photo of a box of documents spilled onto the floor. and in this indictment, it says that the documents included intelligence that was releasable only to the five i countries. we're talking about intelligence only to be shared with the u.s., the united kingdom, canada, australia, and new zealand. that's according to the indictment. and so here you have a person who was president, who wants to be president again, have -- with boxes of documents including one that was spilled onto the floor, i'm not sure if we have that picture. we had it before, if we could get it back. that's the bathroom. that's another example -- that's another example of what we're talking about. on this specific part of the

indictment, these documents that are only supposed to be seen with those countries that the united states relies on for intelligence, the most important intelligence that deals with not just national security for the united states, but for the united states' allies. and so this is not just an issue for within the borders -- that's the photo that this part of the indictment is referring to. it's not just the intelligence and national security of the united states. you have allies around the world looking at these photos, looking at this indictment, and saying this is putting our sources and methods at risk. >> to that point, evan made the point earlier that trump tightened the penalties for retaining classified information in the law he signed in 2018, quoting briefly from it, whoever being an officer, employee, contractor, consultant to the u.s. and by virtue of his office becomes possessed of documents or materials containing

classified information in the united states, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location, note the language on s several fronts, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year or both. and it became defined in prison for not more than five years or both. tightened the language and penalties for exactly such behavior. >> right. one of the criticisms of donald trump, the candidate in 2016, had of the law is that hillary clinton, he believed, right, and he said this repeatedly at his rallies that she was so careless with the national security of the country. she did not deserve to be president. and also one of the complaints they had was that the fbi dropped this case and did not bring any charges. the justice department did not bring any charges. and you know, at the time the law, the republicans were complaining that the law said

that this was a misdemeanor. that was their complaint. one of the things they did in that law was to improve -- was to raise the penalties, to make it a felony. so that's one of the issues. >> that's the key. >> that is the key here for the former president. >> another key here, too, we're using the word cavalier, and mishandling. jack smith is telling you it's criminal. that's the word twice they're using with the prosecution. to one point that i know is often raised in conversations about trying to go for the bigger fish, it's often asked of prosecutors, you want to try to flip someone to be a cooperate, that may happen, but this is not a game of chicken where the prosecutors are hoping if i push you enough maybe this time you'll acquiesce, you'll do what i want you to do. note in the actual document on page 44 is one example. one of the reasons they know and believe and are alling that nauta made a false statement is they have trump employee number two who's able to have shown that he provided assistance. so this reads to me that there

is somebody else who was cooperating, who's already given information to the department of justice and the prosecutors, that could corroborate about what their allegations are. that's important because it then lessens the need if there ever is one to try to flip nauta with an eye toward that being the only successful way to prosecutor pro t-- to prosecute this case. we're talking about the trump attorneys. every time you see a reference to someone unidentified giving further credence to what has been said it might be somebody providing information. >> we believe that we know who that witness is. that is someone who's gone before the grand jury to testify. it is a lower level maintenance worker at the clubs. this is someone who has done their use diligence, done what they were asked to do, testify before the grand jury. but it's a great example of one of the many people called before the grand jury. i mean, the majority of the people who have gone before the grand jury are people who work for the former president. this is a case -- >> everybody, everybody who worked at mar-a-lago pretty much has been called.

>> the gardener to the former white house chief of staff have been facing questions in this investigation. so it's a case that is built on the people around the former president. and it will be fascinating to see if this makes it to trial how this plays out in court. but also want to talk about former secretary of state hillary clinton. she looms so large in this case. in the audio recording, one of the things that you can hear at the outset before they get into the substance, they do make jokes about hillary clinton's handling of classified materials. they make anthony weiner jokes. everyone is laughing about her moments before he makes comments that are clearly one of the central pieces of evidence now in a criminal charge against him. as evan noted it prompted him to change the law. it was a core part of his campaign. you can argue, some people have argued that the way the justice department handled that case, comey coming out to give a press conference to discuss why she wasn't being charged, completely unprecedented. and then also making a decision just days before the election to

announce that additional emails had been found. people argue that helped former president trump get elected. so to find ourselves here, i'd be curious to know what she thinks. >> a lot of unprecedented. >> right? >> we are awaiting the special counsel making a statement here in about 25 minutes. that is the expectation here. but also just -- when we're talking about the sheer amount of documents, we've touched upon this a little bit. but this period of time from may 23rd to june 2nd, it says in sum before trump attorney one's, evan corcoran's review of trump's boxes in the storage room, which we know is a review of incomplete, hugely incomplete amount of documents, nauta, his valet, at trump's direction, moved approximately 64 boxes from the storage room to trump's residence and brought to the storage room only approximately 30 boxes. there's a lot of missing boxes there. and neither trump nor nauta informed evan corcoran of this

information. there's also -- they are in their phone records, right. you have right here trump and nauta on may 30th speaking by phone for approximately 30 seconds. at 9:08 a.m., less than an hour later removing 50 boxes from the storage room. >> by the way, that -- that passage you just read is something that appears in some of the documents that the justice department used to get the search warrant of mar-a-lago. they knew, they knew at the time that documents had been moved and that fewer boxes had been moved back to the storage room. they knew that back in august of last year. so a lot of the investigation that has gone on since then has been focused exactly on explaining, you know, exactly what the former president was doing to obstruct. the ways he was instructing his

employees to help him obstruct this investigation. >> the importance of surveillance footage. surveillance footage has been a key piece of evidence. we've seen in reporting questions to witnesses to make sure that they had all of the surveillance footage that they had requested. >> going back repeatedly. >> going back repeatedly. questions about whether there was any effort to compromise or to hide or destroy the surveillance footage. that is also how they learned a lot about what was going on with the boxes. >> it's as if you had video cameras in the watergate hotel. >> exactly. >> they see the folks moving the boxes to the point of not letting the lawyer know -- if you go to page 37, corruptly concealing a document or record which the brilliant laura coates drew our attention to. this was deliberately not letting the lawyer know. quoting from this that trump and nauta did conceal a record or document that they hid concealed boxes that had these documents and they deliberately kept that from trump attorney. which it tells the significance

of what we find on page 37 and count 34. >> well, it lives -- it lend further credence to the idea that you're corruptly acting in a way -- as the complaint articulates why you are holding the information. what don't you want to happen. and they go painstakingly point after point, clearly the counsel for trump does not want me to speak what i know. but the chai will not fool me. not today, satan. the point, when you know that a lawyer has an affirmative obligation to make a cert certification to the department of justice that says here is what has been given over, it is comprehensive, i'm certifying, i'm attesting to this very notion, here you have it. if they know that person is unwilling to go that extra mile, they will withhold information. and that's the significance here. they were having a tour of the ethical obligation, they were hoping to evade that very

notion. and as they articulate in the complaint, they would like very much for the purpose of not allowing a federal grand jury to have access to this. that is the intent. >> yeah. to your point which was the question we asked going in, tell us can they prove intent? you giving an indication there -- well, at least they -- up to a judge, up to a jury. but a sign that they have something to back that up. john and dana, enormous legal implications from this document, political, as well. >> and i think it's striking as we've gone through since we have this 49-page document, gone through detail after detail after detail, damning photo after damning photo after damning photo. the lawyers know this better than me. but when you bring an indictment, put enough in, just enough in to prove your count, to give your probable cause, your threshold evidence that you're presenting this charge. you don't put everything in it. >> that's right. >> so we're looking at this, and it's damning. again, i'm a broken record but

trump is innocent until proven guilty, ralph nauta, as well. they deserve their day in court. this is detailing with trump's testimony notes from his attorneys, recordings from trump himself, text memssages from hi aides, the inconsistencies. more importantly i would argue for those who want to dismiss this as a misunderstanding over some boxes, as trump likes to call it the boxes hoax, nuclear secrets, maps, military commands, things that belong under lock and key, and that are the property of the united states government. >> i think we're past the possible misunderstanding defense. i think back to what we learned in court documents after the search at mar-a-lago. there were all of these questions of, you know, could evan corcoran be in legal trouble because he did the search and missed all of these classified documents, could christina bobb be in legal trouble because she signed this certification saying according to her knowledge there was this diligent search. all of this just brings to light how much trump was doing allegedly at the center of all of this. the working with nauta to have

boxes moved out of that storage room before evan corcoran did the search. the trump sticking around while officials came to get that envelope that his attorneys were handing over telling them that he was an open book, and this indictment saying earlier that same day, nauta and others loaded trump's boxes and items on the aircraft that flew trump and his family north for the summer. >> and that sound that you hear is silence. largely from republicans in these moments. maybe they're reading this 50-page document. but you're not hearing the same kind of strident language that we heard last night. that's not to say that there won't be defenses, and i think we're already starting to see them formulating this idea that, well, he kept them, he waved them around, he talked about how he couldn't show them to people. but he didn't actually hand them over to a foreign adversary. he didn't actually give them to somebody that wasn't supposed to see these documents. the goalposts are going to

continue to move. but on its face, these allegations are very damaging. that's why you would have to stretch to say that, well, at least he didn't give them to an enemy of the united states. that's not really -- that's certainly not the legal bar. that's not even close to the political bar. and people know this by this point. there have been so many of these cases publicly that have been out there. people understand these issues on a very basic, common sense level. >> that's such an important point. who's to say that an enemy of the united states wouldn't be able to somehow get into -- the ballroom of mar-a-lago, into the bathroom of mar-a-lago, to get the information that the president allegedly took, that looks like -- the former president's, that looks like we see in those photos? >> we've talked a lot about this being donald trump's second time to time. what we're looking -- indictment. what we're looking at is different from what we saw in new york. when people were waiting for the paper to come through in the new

york indictment and they finally saw it, they thought, okay, you know, we knew this. we knew these sort of basic allegations about the trump hush-money payments, we knew this was the case that sort of came together, fell apart, came back together. there were not a lot of surprises. what we're seeing in this is a very different indictment, a very different level of detail. a lot of new information that the public was not privy to before. and it comes when this is not the only case that donald trump is still at the center of. we still have the special counsel's january 6th investigation, we still have a criminal investigation ongoing in georgia. >> you know how many prosecutors have we all talked to who say that particularly when you're going for somebody high profile, if you're going to go for an indictment, you better really have it buttoned up. and there is no bigger, more high-profile person than what we're seeing here. the first time in american history a federal indictment of a former president. and boy does it look like just

from this they've got a lot of goods. >> to that point, we are moments away from hearing for the first time from jack smith, the special counsel who brought this 49-page indictment. and in the details here, in the meticulous listing of the chronology and the documents and the stakes and the classified markings and the text messages from trump aides, the notes to trump attorneys, at first glance here it seems to be that jack smith not only studied the law but studied the mueller report, the impeachments and how trump works. and there was a big conversation last night was why was jack smith yielding the first 12 hours to donald trump. i think he's answered the question here. and it will be fascinating to hear what he does and what he doesn't say, what he will say, is he willing to answer questions, history does he take no questions? but this is the counter. last night was a vacuum. this is a thud. >> it bears repeating that this was the crime that really didn't have to happen. he didn't have to face these charges.

it's pretty simple, you just give the documents back. and honestly, the federal code, if he wanted to see these documents, all he had on this do was ask to see them. there's -- it's not to say that a former president cannot seek to have records that memorialize his time in office. he can ask for them, but he kept them, did not give them back, and tried to apparently based on evidence tell his attorneys not to. and using the language, the really bad stuff in that note from went one of his attorneys -- this is trump largely in his own words basically saying i know i'm not supposed to have this, i'm not supposed to show it to people, i know it's bad. and that's going to be really strong evidence i think. >> you covered the trump white house so you know his language and mindset better than most. the repeated references here to my boxes. my boxes, even though he knows they were not his boxes, tells us what trump thinks.

if i want it, i will take it. >> yes. one other thing to touch on as we are looking here and digging in, there are obviously so many pages in this indictment, but something else that stood out. this is talking about something that happened on may 30th, and a trump family member -- so this is a family member of trump who says to his aide, "good afternoon, walt, happy memorial day," which obviously it isn't happy. but says, "i saw you put boxes to potus room, fyi, and i will tell you, not sure how many he wants to take on friday on the plane. we will not have a room for them. plane will be full with luggage. thank you." nauta replied, "i don't imagine him wanting to take the boxes." what do you make of that, evan? >> i think it shows that at least what the prosecutors are trying to show is that the former president was deeply interested in picking out things

that he wanted to take. so that conversation with a family member, they're not going to have enough room. we've seen some images before that indicated they were trying to take stuff to bedminster, he moves, he and his family go up to bedminster for the summer. so the question here is, you know, did the former president actually do that? i mean, maybe that's something, some evidence that they're going to present at trial. but did he actually do that? did he go out and pick and choose the things that he was going to take with him? >> as you look at these, again, 38 counts, you have three buckets. the retention, multiple cases of retention of highly classified documents on some highly sensitive subject matter including nuclear capabilities of the united states. you have the effort to corruptly conceal those documents in effect. and then counts 37 and 38 are about false sfatatements and representations reading from count 37, trump caused the representations to be made to the grand jury and fbi in a

sworn certification executeded by trump attorney number three. we remember there's been some report being this, that that document that was signed saying everything's been returned was not true. but what stood out to me is that trump caused those false statements to be made by people working for him. significant -- significance of that and when you read the two counts, do they have the goods to back up that? >> it's really significant to know that most people would think for a false statement to be charged -- remember, they are co-defendants in this action, co-defendants, whether theythey'll i be tried together is a separate story. for now we know they're co-defendants. you as the person who has induced another to make a false statement can be held liable as if you yourself was the actual speaker. because we don't want people to get away with pawning off the responsibility or using somebody as kind of a verbal hit man and not have any accountability at that point in time. so it's very -- legally you can still prove it even if you weren't the one to make the

statement. another aspect, of course, is just the breadth of the information they have. you asked whether or not this helps in the aiding of the prosecution in this case. remember jack smith still has a report to file with the attorney general. if this is this 40 some-odd-page document that is going to the court of law for a judge to look at, for the arraignment, the defense council, obviously the court of public opinion, imagine what the report include in terms of declinations. what did they decide not to pursue and why. and the number-one question that keeps going on in as i look at all those boxes, look at the photographs, why those documents? how does one accumulate all of those documents, and how long was that process undergoing? these don't appear to be tchotchkes, looking at a podium for when we have jack smith coming, but did this entire discussion and plan start long before, and what was the motivation for wanting to retain them? this complaint does not go into

that. but you better believe that a jury pool is going to be wondering why do you want those documents and inferring something. >> because these are dangerous to be out there in a public ballroom, in a bathroom, in a bedroom, in a -- >> shower -- >> an insecure shower, insecure storage facility spilling out. we see that in the photos, in an insecure estate or resort yes there is some security. but this is not the white house. this is not a large skiff, it just isn't. sit dangerous for this information -- >> we're -- >> dangerous for this to be there. >> everyone else -- >> they know that from bid minister. >> just to be clear, everyone else with a security clearance from an airman up to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is required to consume these documents or store these documents in highly secured facilities. >> and we're looking right now, as you see on the screen there

to the left, we are awaiting the special counsel, making a statement. this is going to be, for many people, their first introduction to jack smith. someone they may have heard about but don't know much about. >> no. we've tried. i mean, this is someone who has take an posture, he doesn't want to know what stories are being reported. he does not want to correct things, he doesn't want to make public statements. early on, we asked for a more professional government head shot, because the only photo we had, he's in that purple and black attire, so people joked it looked like he was in hogwarts. but he declined to provide another photo. so that's the level of media disinterest, shall we say. the fact that he's coming out and giving a statement, it will be fascinating for the american people and for former president trump to hear from this individual for the first time. he has popped up a few times in testimony for former vice president mike pence in the

january 6th probe. we're told he was also at the meeting with trump lawyers, but he didn't say much. so i'm really curious what he has to say. >> we are going to let you know, because you have to mobilize for our special coverage. we'll let you do that so you can make sure that you are in place for that, as we turn back here to laura to talk about what is ahead and what you were expecting to hear here. >> well, i don't expect to hear from merrick garland at this particular podium. remember, the special counsel regulations here. this has been handed over, the reins given to jack smith. to remove any hint of pro pryty. this is the front-runner of the gop nomination and a former president. there are already political talking points about why this seems to be a weaponization. we see from this document this has little to do, if anything at all, about politics. but it will be spoken about nonetheless. but i expect that the document

itself will be far more robust than ever jack smith will be, precisely he articulated in this complaint, which includes statements from the former president to point out hey, what you say can be used against you in a court of law in the future. in this case in the complaint, it was used to suggest that donald trump was well affair of the classification process, and the gravitas assigned to it. so i'll doubt he will want to open himself up. but one point here, you mentioned that a national guardsman, i'm thinking about one in massachusetts in particular. i would love to hear from members of congress, especially those who followed that story and have been quite adamant about the nature of that alleged offense. now, imagine that correspondence. the sounds i'm hearing now is striking, given we're talking about statutes, as in congressional laws and beyond. so what they will have to say will be very telling. >> that's why they say it, from airman down, because we're

dealing with the case of the mishandling of classified documents, taken very seriously by both parties. as we prepare to hand it over to special coverage, we can take a breath to acknowledge the seriousness of this, and the historic nature of this. it is the third legal ent entanglement for this president. you have the manhattan cases, the e. jean carroll case. we knew last night he was going to be indicted. now we have seen that indictment. it's 38 counts. it is serious, comprehensive, and it involves some of the nation's most sensitive intelligence. >> it does, nuclear secrets and many other things that have to do with the vulnerabilities of u.s. national security. dangerous information to have hanging out there as we are understanding that this special counsel is in the former president's phone records, or the phone records of those who have spoken to him, in the text

messages of those who have spoken with trump, family members actually even possibly it may even be donald trump's spouse. that appears what it may be, but we are working to confirm that. this is laid out here, and as you said, we are waiting the special coverage. those details may have to speak for themselves in this long document here. >> a waeighty document in literl and figurative terms. >> none of us takes any pleasure in the fact that this is in existence right now, because we're talking about for every document and classified detail, there is a human being or human information source that is connected to it. and there are countries and allies that are relying on the united states of america, particularly in times like this, to protect. and i deeply as a parent and american, wonder what our future will be. >> and we are turning now to our special coverage, which begins right now.

♪ ♪ welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world to cnn special coverage of this historic event, the federal indictment of former president donald trump. i'm jake tapper in washington, d.c. >> and i'm anderson cooper in new york. any moment, we are expecting to hear from special counsel jack smith live at the justice department, addressing the 37 charges against the former president and six charges against one of his aides. tin d the indictment was unsealed just over an hour ago and it is deeply troubling. >> the allegations outlined include that donald trump kept documents so sensitive they required special handling. storing documents about u.s. defense weapons and nuclear

programs and those of foreign countries, as a vulnerabilities the united states has, that he stored them recklessly in mar-a-lago, in a ballroom, on the stage where events were being held, and in bathrooms, and even in a shower seen here. the indictment also alleges trump asked his attorney to lie to the federal government, to the fbi, about his possession of these classified documents. some of them at least, tried to hide or destroy documents, ones that had been subpoenaed. >> the indictment states then on at least two occasions, trump showed classified material to others who did not have the clearance to see them. we're just moments away from the special counsel in this investigation. jack smith speaking about the indictment. but i want to bring in cnn's paula reed and evan perez who have been all over this story.

paula, the justice department has basically ceded control of the narrative to trump and his lawyers about the indictment since last night, but now we are about to hear from the prosecutors. >> that's right. we're about to hear from special counsel jack smith for the first time since he took over this investigation back in november. he's only actually been spotted out in public once during the entire course of this probe. it will be very interesting to see. i expect he will speak maybe for a couple of minutes. he's not expected to take questions, though i expect the press corps in attendance is going to try. but he's given former president trump about 16 hours of lead time to fill a void of information here. we have just gotten the indictment unsealed. we've been going through it and reporting on it. it will be interesting to see what jack smith has to say to the american people about the work that he's been doing and about this historic indictment that's just been unsealed. the first time a former president of the united states has faced federal criminal

charges. >> evan, walk us through exactly what the charges are. 31 of them are about the documents themselves, right? >> right, exactly, jake. and this is how typically these documents, these indictments are structured. the allegation is that, again, this is typically how these things are structured. every document represents a separate charge. what we know is that there is 38 counts that the former president is being charged with. willful retention of those documents, related to 31 of those, i believe. the details here are key, though. the key details are that the former president not only stored these 300 or so documents in a reckless manner, but also that he shared them with people who had no right to see them, that did not have the clearances to see them. they give two examples.

one in july of 2021, which is the audio recording that paula and the team have been reporting on for the last couple of weeks. the prosecutors cite the conversations that the former president is having with people in that room. there is -- right there it shows you that trump showed and described a plan of attack that trump said was prepared for him by the department of defense, and mark milley, who is, of course, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. he showed a representative of his political action committee. the second one is he showed a representative of his political action committee, who did not have a security clearance, a classified map related to a military operation. those are the two instances that the can prosecutors cite in this document as, you know, the former president sharing information with people who are not cleared to have it. secondly, the obstruction of justice charges. according to prosecutors, the former president suggested to