Former president Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 counts in the investigation into whether he mishandled national security documents after he left the White House and obstructed justice by failing to fully comply with a grand jury subpoena to return material marked classified.
A timeline of what led to Trump’s classified documents indictment
Key moments in the investigation of Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House
Updated June 11, 2023 at 3:29 p.m. EDT|Published August 30, 2022 at 4:46 p.m. EDT
January 2021-January 2022: Retrieving the first set of boxes
Jan. 20: Donald Trump leaves office after a chaotic transition in which he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Boxes of records that White House counsel Pat Cipollone had decided should go to the National Archives instead are shipped to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida club and residence.
January-March 15: Some of Trump’s boxes are kept in a ballroom inside Mar-a-Lago, according to the 49-page indictment. The boxes are stacked at the end of the ballroom’s stage for a time.
March: Trump aide Waltine “Walt” Nauta, who was also charged in the case, and others, allegedly move some of Trump’s boxes from the ballroom to the business center at Mar-a-Lago, according to the court filing.
April 5: Two Trump employees allegedly exchange text messages about moving Trump’s boxes out of the business center so staff ca use it as an office. “Woah!! Ok so potus specifically asked Walt for those boxes to be in the business center because they are his ‘papers,’” writes former Trump executive assistant Molly Michael, referred to as “Trump Employee 2” in the indictment. That month, some of the boxes are allegedly moved from the business center to a bathroom and shower.
May 6: The National Archives and Records Administration contacts Trump’s team to say some high-profile presidential documents appear to be missing.Over the next several months, archives officials repeatedly ask for the missing records and Trump resists returning them.
May: Trump tells staff to clean out a storage room at Mar-a-Lago to store his boxes, according to the indictment. The storage room had multiple entrances to the outside, including one to the pool that was allegedly often open. That same month, he directed some boxes to be brought to his home in Bedminster, N.J., according to the indictment.
June 24: Trump’s boxes are moved to the storage room he asked to be cleaned out, according to the indictment. More than 80 boxes are in that room after the move.
July 21: During a meeting at the Bedminster Club with a writer, a publisher and two staffers, Trump shows and describes a “plan of attack,” according to the indictment. The target of that attack was Iran, The Washington Post has reported. The former president calls the plan “highly confidential” and says he could have declassified it as president, according to the indictment. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret,” he adds, the indictment stated.
August or September: Also at the Bedminster Club, Trump shows a classified document to a staffer a second time, according to the indictment. This time, it is allegedly an unidentified aide from his political action committee. The document, according to the indictment, is a classified map about a military operation in another country. Trump tells the aide “that he should not be showing the map to the PAC representative and to not get too close,” the indictment says.
Nov. 12: Michael allegedly gives Trump a picture of dozens of boxes stacked against a wall in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago. The indictment says the photograph is given to Trump so he can see the number of boxes stored there.
Dec. 7: Nauta finds documents from several of Trump’s boxes strewn across the floor of the storage room, according to the court filing. The indictment notes that one of the spilled documents is marked as “SECRET//REL TO USA, FVEY,” meaning the information in the document could only be shown to specific allies.
December: A Trump attorney informs the archives that aides have identified some of the missing documents, including correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that Trump had once touted as “love letters,” and a National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian that Trump had altered with a black Sharpie in a widely mocked attempt to claim he had not been wrong about the storm’s path.
Dec. 29: Michael, who kept close tabs on Trump’s packing of boxes, exchanges texts about the boxes with Alex Cannon, a Trump attorney who tried to get the former president to return materials to the archives, according to the indictment. “Box answer will be wrenched out of him by tomorrow,” she allegedly writes to Cannon, referred to in the indictment as a “Trump Representative.”
Jan. 17, 2022: An archives contractor arrives at Mar-a-Lago to load 15 boxes into a truck and transports them 1,000 miles north. Among the gifts, mementos and papers sent back were the notable items the archives had requested, including a letter President Barack Obama left for Trump.
Jan. 18, 2022: Fifteen boxes of records arrive at the archives.The FBI later found 197 documents with classification markings in 14 of those boxes, according to the indictment.
February through May 10, 2022: An investigation begins
Early February: Trump Cannon to tell the archives and the public that he has returned all material requested by the agency. Cannon refuses because he does not know whether government documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the matter said.
Feb. 9: On opening the boxes, archives officials find documents clearly marked classified, intermingled with printouts of news articles, mementos and items. They make a formal referral asking the Justice Department to investigate the possible mishandling of classified records.
March 30: The FBI opens a criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of the documents, according to the indictment.
April: Trump hires a new lawyer to deal with the issue, Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor who was representing former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon in a contempt of Congress case.
April 26: A federal grand jury opens an investigation into Trump’s handling of the documents, according to the indictment.
April 29: The Justice Department’s National Security Division emails Corcoran, explaining that its lawyers understand there were at least 100 classified documents in the returned boxes, some of which have “the highest levels of classification, including Special Access Program (SAP) materials.” The Justice Department indicates a desire to access the documents as part of an “ongoing criminal investigation” and “to assess potential damage resulting from the apparent manner in which these materials were stored and transported and take any necessary remedial steps.”
April 29: Corcoran emails the archives asking for additional time to review material in the returned boxes “in order to ascertain whether any specific document is subject to privilege” and then to consult with Trump. Executive privilege is usually invoked to shield communications from Congress or the courts, not from one part of the executive branch to another. But in his email, Corcoran says that if more time is not provided, the letter should be considered “a protective assertion of executive privilege made by counsel for the former President.”
April and May: The FBI interviews witnesses in Trump’s orbit, including Philbin. These sessions clinch suspicions that additional classified material remains at Mar-a-Lago, people familiar with the investigation have said.
May 5: Former Trump adviser Kash Patel tells the pro-Trump news outlet Breitbart that any material with classified markings returned to the archives in January had been declassified by Trump.
May 10: Acting archivist Debra Steidel Wall informs Corcoran that the Biden White House has deferred the privilege question to her. She says she has consulted with archives lawyers and the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and has found Trump’s privilege claims unconvincing. The FBI review will soon proceed, Steidel Wall says in a letter.
May 11-June 8, 2023: A subpoena — and a court-approved search
May 11: The Office of Donald J. Trump receives a grand jury subpoena seeking all “documents bearing classification markings” that are still in Trump’s possession, the indictment says. The filing indicates that in response, Trump asked his aides to look for documents marked classified, even if he believed they had been declassified.
May 16 to 18: FBI agents reviewing the material returned to the archives find 184 documents with classification markings: 67 marked confidential, 92 marked secret and 25 marked top secret, according to an affidavit that would be filed several weeks later in support of the request for a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago. They include: HCS, FISA, ORCON, NOFORN and SI — acronyms that refer to, among other things, the government systems used to protect intelligence gathered from secret human sources, the collection of information through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and intelligence that cannot be shared with foreign allies. Some documents contain what appear to be Trump’s handwritten notes.
May 23: Trump allegedly meets with Corcoran and an unnamed attorney to talk about the May 11 subpoena. Corcoran and the other attorney tell Trump they need to look for the documents to comply with the subpoena, according to the indictment. Based on Corcoran’s recollection, Trump wonders aloud if they can tell the archives they have no documents. “Well what if we, what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” Trump says, according to the indictment. Trump also allegedly confirmed he understood Corcoran would return to Mar-a-Lago to search for documents on June 2.
May 23-June 2: After Trump’s meeting with Corcoran and the other attorney, Nauta allegedly moves about 64 boxes to Trump’s residence from the storage room before Corcoran returns on June 2, according to the indictment. Nauta had multiple phone calls with Trump hours before moving boxes out of the storage room, the indictment stated. Trump and Nauta allegedly did not tell Corcoran about the boxes’ removal.
May 25: Corcoran sends a letter to Jay Bratt, chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, saying that Trump had returned the boxes to the archives in January as part of “a voluntary and open process.” He claims that statutes governing the handling of classified material do not apply to Trump, who Corcoran says had the right to declassify anything. “Any attempt to impose criminal liability on a President or former President that involves his actions with respect to documents marked classified would implicate grave constitutional separation of powers issues,” the letter says. It does not state that the archive documents had been declassified.
May 26: Nauta agrees to a voluntary interview about the 15 boxes Trump gave the archives on Jan. 17, 2022, according to the indictment. It alleges that in that interview, Nauta makes “a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.” The FBI asks the Trump aide if he knows information about where the boxes had been kept and whether they were secure. “I wish, I wish I could tell you. I don’t know. I don’t — honestly just don’t know,” he allegedly answers, even though he moved and watched the boxes being moved, according to the indictment.
June 2: Nauta speaks with Trump on the phone, then moves approximately 30 of Trump’s boxes back from the residence to the storage room, the indictment alleges. It says neither Nauta nor Trump informed Corcoran that fewer than half of the 64 boxes that were moved out of the storage room were taken back there.
That same day, Corcoran is escorted to the storage room by Nauta to search the boxes there. He finds 38 documents with classification markings, the indictment alleges. While discussing what Corcoran should do with the documents, Trump allegedly “made a plucking motion,” the indictment says. Corcoran said in the court filing that the motion conveyed the idea that “if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out.” That evening, Corcoran requested a meeting with Bratt to hand over the documents the next day. “The legal team had done a very thorough search. We turned over everything that we found,” another Trump attorney, Christina Bobb, later told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham. “It’s my understanding based on very good belief, based on a thorough investigation, that there was nothing there.” Bobb is referred to in the indictment as “Trump Attorney 3.”
June 3: Bratt and three FBI agents met with Bobb and Corcoran at Mar-a-Lago and receive the documents gathered in response to the subpoena. Trump’s attorneys later write in a court filing that the group is greeted in the dining room by Trump, who tells the lawyers to give Bratt and his agents anything they need. The filing indicates that Bratt tours the storage area. In its Aug. 30 court filing, the Justice Department tells a judge that Trump’s attorney “explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room.”
The indictment indicates that Bobb signed a written statement certifying: “Based upon the information that has been provided to me, I am authorized to certify, on behalf of the Office of Donald J. Trump, the following: a. A diligent search was conducted of the boxes that were moved from the White House to Florida; b. This search was conducted after receipt of the subpoena, in order to locate any and all documents that are responsive to the subpoena; c. Any and all responsive documents accompany this certification.”
The Justice Department says later that Bratt was given a single folder that analysis shows includes 38 unique documents bearing classification markings, including five documents marked as confidential, 16 marked as secret and 17 marked as top secret.
June 8: Bratt emails Corcoran asking that any documents still at Mar-a-Lago be kept in the storage room and not be disturbed.
June 8 to June 22: FBI interviews members of Trump’s “personal and household staff,” Trump’s attorneys have said.
June 24: According to the government, the Trump Organization, which owns Mar-a-Lago, receives a subpoena for surveillance video from the property. Among the images that could be seen on the video was Nauta moving boxes in the storage room after the subpoena was received.
July: The FBI and the grand jury review the movement of boxes at Mar-a-Lago in surveillance video they obtained, according to the indictment.
Aug. 5: Magistrate Judge Bruce E. Reinhart approves the FBI’s request for a search warrant.
Aug. 8: FBI agents in casual clothes and without their guns spend nearly nine hours at Mar-a-Lago searching the club’s storage room, Trump’s residential suite and offices. The FBI seized more than 100 documents marked classified, from the confidential to top secret level. Seventy-six were found in the storage room. Others were found in Trump’s office, including three documents found in the drawers of desks. In addition, more than 11,000 government documents without classification markings were seized, along with 48 empty folders with “CLASSIFIED” banners, 42 empty folders labeled “Return to Staff Secretary/Mili[t]ary Aide” and around 20 gift items or articles of clothing.
Nov. 15: Trump announces he is again running for president, seeking the 2024 GOP nomination.
Nov. 18: Garland appoints Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the ongoing investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents, as well as a separate probe of efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
June 8, 2023: A 37-count indictment is filed against Trump in federal court in Miami. Nauta receives six counts in the same filing.
Jacqueline Alemany, Devlin Barrett, Josh Dawsey, Carol D. Leonnig and Perry Stein contributed to this report.
