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1 1 (June 9, 2023)

handle is hein.crs/govelxd0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional ______ R a esearch Service The Mar-a-Lago Indictment: A Legal Introduction Updated June 9, 2023 On June 8, 2023, President Trump stated on social media that he had been informed a federal grand jury had returned an indictment against him. The indictment, which was unsealed on June 9, 2023, includes a total of 38 counts related to government documents found at the former President's Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, FL, and the investigation arising from the retention of those documents. The indictment names both former President Trump and an associate as defendants. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) previously executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, which a magistrate judge unsealed along with an inventory of property seized and a redacted version of the warrant's supporting affidavit. The warrant authorized government officials to seize all documents and records constituting evidence of possible violations of several federal statutes related to unlawful retention, removal, destruction, or alteration of government documents. The charges in the indictment fall into three categories. Those categories are willful retention of documents related to the national defense in violation of the Espionage Act (18 U.S.C. § 793(e)); obstruction-based charges, including destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations (18 U.S.C. @ 1519), witness tampering (18 U.S.C. @ 1512), and conspiracy to violate the witness tampering statute (18 U.S.C. § 1512(k)); and false statement offenses (18 U.S.C. @ 1001). The indictment also includes 18 U.S.C. § 2 in several of the counts; that provision specifies, among other things, that whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal. The former President is charged in 37 of the 38 counts in the indictment, with a final false-statement count naming the former President's associate alone. The majority of the counts against the former President fall under the Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C. @ 793(e). This Sidebar thus focuses on that provision. (Other CRS products provide more information on some of the other federal obstruction of justice provisions, false statement offenses, and the conspiracy charge in the indictment.) This Sidebar also analyzes presidential authority to declassify documents and the role of declassification for the crimes at issue. Finally, this Sidebar discusses three developments related to the warrant and case against the former Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10810 CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress