i ll be back to continue our special coverage of the indictment of donald trump, joining my colleagues alicia and then the, simone sanders hand sound, and me, at eight pm eastern for more in-depth reporting. and analysis, but first, there s still two more hours of velshi on this saturday morning. coming up next, the latest on the trump indictment. what we know, what comes next, and what effect it s going to have on the 2024 election. another hour of velshi begins, right now. good morning. saturday, june 10th. i m ali velshi. for the second time in just a little over two months, the twice impeached ex president, donald trump, has been indicted. this, time by the federal government. yesterday, jack smith made his first official public appearance as special counsel to announce the historic indictment. he also underlined why it s so important that this case moves forward. adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the department of justice. and our nation
providing that the united states reserves and retains complete ownership, possession and control of presidential records. for more than a year, and despite multiple opportunities to remedied situation and return materials that rightly belong to the federal government, donald trump refused to cooperate time and time again. as we know now from the indictment unsealed by the department of justice yesterday, the former president and his personal valet, and now codefendants, walt nauta have both been indicted. trump along faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, and one count of false statements. both men are also charged with one count each of his conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document, corruptly concealing a document, concealing and documents in a federal investigation, and a scheme to conceal. not to has also in charge for making false statements. the government alleges in his indictment that it s not only a passive bystander that go
passive bystander that got caught up in this ordeal, he was an active participants who was personally involved in the process of packing up documents as he was set to leave the white house and, quote, cause scores of bounces, many of which contained classified documents, to be transported to the mar-a-lago club in palm beach, florida, and quotes. those documents were no ordinary documents. they included, according to the indictment, quote, information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the united states and foreign countries. united states nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the united states and its allies to militarily attack and plans for a possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack, and quote. once boxes that included hundreds of these types of sensitive documents arrived at mar-a-lago, back in january of 2021, they were shuttled from one room to another across the property. stored out in the open. for the first few months, some boxes sat on a s
belong to both to the federal government and the people of america, donald trump refused to cooperate. as we now know from the indictment unsealed by the department of justice yesterday, the former president and his personal valet had now codefendant walt nada, both have been indicted. trump alone faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, and one counts of false statements. both men are also charged with one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a documents, corruptly concealing a document, concealing a document in a federal investigation, and a scheme to conceal. what nauta also faces a separate charge for making false statements. now, the government alleges in its indictment that trump was not nearly a passive bystander who got caught up in this ordeal. he was an active participant who was personally involved in the process of packing up documents, as he was set to leave the white house, and quote, cause scores of boxes,