[2][3] The grand jury indictment brought 40 felony counts against Trump related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his first presidency, to which he pleaded not guilty.

[5] On June 8, 2023, the original indictment with 37 felony counts against Trump was filed in the federal district court in Miami by the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith.

Though Judge Aileen Cannon initially set trial for May 20, 2024,[18] she postponed it[19] and then dismissed the case on July 15, ruling that the appointment of Smith had been unconstitutional.

[20][21] Though the special counsel appealed the dismissal,[22][23][24] it later chose to wind down the case following Trump's election in November 2024, in part due to its long-standing department policy not to prosecute a sitting president.

[32] The civil lawsuit Trump v. United States arose from the search, which briefly led to the appointment of a special master by District Judge Aileen Cannon to review seized materials.

[39] In March 2023, Judge Beryl Howell wrote: "Notably, no excuse is provided as to how the former president could miss the classified-marked documents found in his own bedroom at Mar-a-Lago."

Howell was referring to additional documents that Trump's attorneys found in his office and bedroom at Mar-a-Lago months after the FBI search, including a "mostly empty" folder marked as "Classified Evening Summary".

The indictment was unsealed the following day, and special counsel Jack Smith gave a brief statement emphasizing the seriousness of the charges and stating that his office would seek a speedy trial.

[51] Boxes containing classified materials were stored on a stage in the White and Gold ballroom, where events took place, from January to March 2021, before being moved to the Mar-a-Lago business center.

[52][53] It included transcripts of an audio recording it says are of Trump showing a classified U.S. military attack plan (the name of the target country is redacted) to a book publisher, writer, and two staff members in July 2021, while saying he was unable to declassify the document.

News reports said the target country was Iran that and Trump was showing the document to the writers while complaining that General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had unfairly portrayed him to the media.

"[55] Originally, the indictment alleged that in fall 2021, Trump showed a classified military map to a representative of his political action committee (PAC) (later identified in the press as Susie Wiles, CEO of his Save America PAC)[56] who did not have a security clearance, and that Trump acted to keep classified documents he knew he could not be in possession of because they had been subpoenaed.

Shortly after Trump and Nauta's original indictment in June, a target letter was sent to Yuscil Taveras, the director of information technology at Mar-a-Lago who oversees the surveillance cameras.

[60] Taveras then retracted his previous testimony and provided new information regarding a plot to delete surveillance video at the Florida property that implicated Trump and others.

[63]On July 27, a superseding indictment was filed, charging an additional defendant, Carlos De Oliveira, the maintenance chief at Mar-a-Lago, and adding new counts for Trump and Nauta.

[76][77][78][79] Halligan is the local counsel for the case and filed the Motions to Appear Pro Hac Vice for Evan Corcoran and James Trusty, initially on August 22, 2022.

On June 19, a judge issued a protective order that restricted Trump to viewing the relevant documents under his attorneys' supervision and explicitly prohibited him from publicly discussing the evidence,[94] as DOJ had requested three days earlier.

[123] On May 24, Jack Smith's office asked Cannon to place a gag order on Trump related to his "repeated mischaracterization" of the actions of law enforcement officials.

[124] Three days earlier, Trump had begun falsely claiming that Joe Biden had been ready to kill him during the FBI search,[125] an unprecedented accusation.

[126] In making this accusation, Trump was referencing a standard law enforcement policy, a copy of which had been attached to the FBI's description of the planned search of Mar-a-Lago, which states that officers are authorized to use lethal force if there is "imminent danger of death or serious physical injury".

[127][128] On May 27, Trump's lawyers said that the gag order request was an "extraordinary, unprecedented, and unconstitutional censorship application" and was "bad-faith behavior" on the part of government prosecutors.

Given "the haphazard manner" in which Trump had combined "some of the nation's most highly guarded secrets" with "newspapers, thank you notes, Christmas ornaments, magazines, clothing, and photographs of himself and others", investigators having further shuffled the material within each seized box should not be "critical to his defense", they argued.

[93][141] The prosecution requested that the trial start on December 11, 2023—a relatively short delay—to give the defense more time to review discovery material, obtain security clearance, and properly handle classified evidence.

[15] Prosecutors told the court that the trial should still proceed expeditiously given its significance and because the case "involves straightforward theories of liability" and presented neither "novel questions of fact" nor "unusual or complex" legal issues.

[96] Their attorneys argued that it would be "challenging" to prepare for trial while Trump spent his "time and energy" on the presidential campaign trail and that it would be hard to find a "fair and impartial" jury.

[96][142][143] In its reply two days later, prosecutors argued that there was "no basis in law or fact" for such an "indeterminate and open-ended" delay, and they asked for trial to begin December 11.

Because of the sequential nature of pretrial deadlines under the Classified Information Procedures Act, Cannon's decision had, according to The Guardian, effectively delayed the trial by four months.

The rationale mirrored Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' concurrence in Trump v. United States, released two weeks prior.

[169][170] On July 15, 2023, Trump gave a speech to the Turning Point Action Conference, claiming: "Whatever documents a president decides to take with him, he has the absolute and unquestioned right to do so."

"[174] Many congressional Republicans responded to the indictment by asserting, without evidence, that Trump was being targeted for political purposes by a Justice Department "weaponized" by President Joe Biden,[175][176] although an independent special counsel oversaw the investigation and a grand jury made the charging decision.