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https://abcnews.go.com/US/trump-wrote-lists-assistant-white-house-documents-marked/story?id=103226113 has witness statements that claim that former President Trump was using the backside of briefing cards containing classified information to write to-do lists for his assistants. Obviously this meant handing these cards with classified information to these assistants, which to someone like me who isn't a legal professional sounds a lot like distribution/dissemination/disclosure or whatever the legal term is.

I have 2 questions about this:

  1. Is this already mentioned in the indictment against former President Trump?
  2. If it is not already mentioned, does this provide any grounds for additional charges against former President Trump?
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    "Is this already mentioned in the indictment against former President Trump?": It's not very difficult to find online. Did you look? If so, what didn't you understand?
    – phoog
    Sep 18 at 21:06
  • @phoog I wouldn't even know where to look and even if I did I don't have the time to read a 100+ page document. I was hoping someone else who had already put in that effort would be able to answer that question.
    – Nzall
    Sep 18 at 21:08
  • A copy of the current indictment can be found at nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/09/us/… and pbs.org/newshour/politics/… and lawfaremedia.org/article/…
    – ohwilleke
    Sep 19 at 2:24

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Is this already mentioned in the indictment against former President Trump?

No. It primarily covers 31 national defense documents that were present at Mar-a-lago in Florida. Activities in the White House are not covered by the classified documents indictment.

If it is not already mentioned, does this provide any grounds for additional charges against former President Trump?

Not in the pending case (which is limited to acts taking place in the Southern District of Florida), and probably not in any case.

One of the reasons that the indictment focuses on national defense documents is that this is a crime regardless of the formal status of these documents in the classification protocol. They can't be "declassified" by the President in a way that make possession of them not a crime.

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