Trump's GOP critics take aim after indictment is unsealed

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican who's butted heads with Trump in the past, said today that the charges against him “are quite serious and cannot be casually dismissed."

"Mishandling classified documents is a federal crime because it can expose national secrets, as well as the sources and methods they were obtained through. The unlawful retention and obstruction of justice related to classified documents are also criminal matters," the senator said in a statement.

"Anyone found guilty — whether an analyst, a former president, or another elected or appointed official — should face the same set of consequences,” she added.

With her statement, Murkowski joined Mitt Romney of Utah as one of the few Senate Republicans to emphasize the seriousness of the charges facing the former president.

In 2021, Murkowski and Romney were among the seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment trial. Murkowski later defeated Trump's hand-picked challenger for her Senate seat in 2022.

Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska tonight became one of the few congressional Republicans to criticize Trump following his indictment, saying he was "shocked" by the handling of government documents.

“As a retired brigadier general who worked with classified materials my entire career, I am shocked at the alleged callousness with which the documents were handled,” Bacon said in a statement. “The alleged obstruction to the requests of the National Archives and FBI, if true, is inexcusable.”

"I’m the same person who criticized Hilary Clinton for knowingly and willfully storing thousands of classified emails on her unclassified computer, and thought the DOJ failed in holding her accountable. I believe in using the same standards and ask the DOJ to do the same. No one is above the law, and we demand due process and expect equality under the law.”

Bacon is one of 18 House Republicans representing a district Biden would have carried in 2020 had new congressional maps been in place at that time.

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie tonight called the Trump indictment "very evidence-filled" and said "the facts are devastating."

"It is bad for anyone in this country," but especially for a former president who's running for office, the former New Jersey governor told CNN in an interview. "Is this the type of conduct we want from someone who wants to be president of the United States?"

He also said Trump's problems were "self-inflicted" and could have been avoided entirely had he just complied with the Justice Department's subpoena for the return of the documents. Christie noted that the indictment does not include any charges relating to the classified documents Trump voluntarily turned over to the government in January and June 2022.

Christie, a former federal prosecutor, had declined to comment on the case Thursday night before the indictment was unsealed. “Let’s see what the facts are when any possible indictment is released,” Christie tweeted at the time.

A newly unsealed court document revealed that Trump was informed on May 19 that he was a target of special counsel Jack Smith's classified documents investigation.

The date was included in Smith's motion Thursday to seal the indictment. That motion, along with the indictment, was unsealed today.

The motion also said that Trump aide Walt Nauta was notified on May 24 that he, too, was a target in the probe.

People who are informed of their status as targets in federal probes are usually told late in the investigative process and are often, but not always, indicted.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — the Florida judge initially assigned to oversee Trump’s federal indictment — is overseeing another active court case involving Trump: a civil lawsuit brought by a Texas lawyer who seeks to bar the former president from running for the White House again.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Miami by John Anthony Castro, who is registered as a Republican candidate for president, cites the 14th Amendment as the basis to declare Trump “ineligible to hold public office for having given aid or comfort to the insurrectionists that attacked our United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

Cannon, a Trump appointee, has presided over the civil case since it was filed in January, court records show. As of today, she had yet to rule on the case’s latest filing — a May 22 motion by Castro that seeks an expedited ruling on efforts by Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the lawsuit.

Cannon has also had previous involvement with the classified documents probe: She made the controversial appointment of a special master to review materials seized by federal agents from Mar-a-Lago last summer. Her assignment to oversee the Mar-a-Lago documents trial was chosen randomly, a court official told NBC News.

Trump still plans to make his way to Georgia this weekend for the state Republican convention following his indictment on federal charges. And Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s PAC is welcoming him with a poll that shows a generic Republican not named Trump fares much better in a 2024 general election race.

It is significant that a group aligned with Kemp would circulate the poll, which was conducted prior to the indictment, as the former president comes to Georgia. Trump and Kemp have been at odds since the governor resisted Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. Trump then worked to defeat Kemp in his 2022 primary, which the governor easily won.

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., today backed up Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan’s request for additional information from Attorney General Merrick Garland regarding the FBI's Mar-a-Lago search in August.

“Merrick Garland: the American people elected us to conduct oversight of you,” McCarthy tweeted. “We will fulfill that obligation.”

Reality Winner, the former intelligence contractor imprisoned for leaking a top secret report on Russian hacking, said today that she was “blown away” by the level of detail in the unsealed indictment against Trump.

Winner was prosecuted and convicted under the Trump administration for defying the Espionage Act by leaking classified information. Now Trump faces 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information — also in violation of the Espionage Act — as well as other counts related to making false statements and conspiring to obstruct justice.

“This is probably one of the most egregious and cut-and-dry cases,” Winner, 31, said in a phone interview with NBC News of the allegations that Trump held onto sensitive government documents and attempted to mislead investigators.

Read the full story here.

Ken Cuccinelli, a former attorney general in Virginia who served as deputy secretary of Homeland Security under Trump, called the classified docs indictment much stronger than the case against the former president in New York.

"If what reads out in the indictment is accurate ... there is a strong technical case here against the president," Cuccinelli said on "Meet the Press Now," later adding: “He shouldn’t have had and no president should have any classified documents, even after they leave the White House."

Cuccinelli launched a PAC earlier this year that encouraged Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to enter the presidential race and challenge Trump in 2024 for the GOP nomination. He said voters he's talked to are tired of the drama and he believes DeSantis will provide "a stark contrast."

"You’ve heard of Trump derangement syndrome, there’s also Trump exhaustion syndrome — and that’s among many of us who have or had supported him," Cuccinelli said.