Trump Is Arraigned on Documents and Obstruction Charges

He then boarded his jet for a flight back to New Jersey, where he held a fund-raiser, with donors who raise at least $100,000 for his campaign invited to a “candlelight dinner,” and gave remarks at his golf club in Bedminster.

“I did everything right and they indicted me,” Mr. Trump said, subdued but barely containing his anger.

He asserted, in defiance of the clear meaning of the law, that he was entitled under the Presidential Records Act to keep the documents he took. “I had every right” to keep them, he said.

The 49-page indictment of Mr. Trump and Mr. Nauta laid out in vivid detail Mr. Trump’s casual, at times haphazard handling of highly sensitive documents from his White House. It said those documents included details of sensitive nuclear programs, intelligence on foreign adversaries, Pentagon battle plans and other documents that detailed the country’s potential vulnerabilities to military attack.

In some cases, prosecutors said, he displayed them to people without security clearances and stored them in a haphazard manner at Mar-a-Lago, even stacking a pile of boxes in a bathroom at his private club and residence in Florida.

Tuesday’s hearing also marked a milestone — it was the first time Mr. Trump and Mr. Smith, adversaries in a legal battle with enormous implications, crossed paths publicly.

After the hearing ended, Mr. Trump took a brief look over his shoulder at the reporters who crammed the courtroom, before exiting through a side door.

Mr. Smith and his prosecutors left through a door on the opposite side of the courtroom about a minute later.

Reporting was contributed by Maggie Haberman, Alan Feuer, Zach Montague, Shane Goldmacher, Nick Madigan, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Frances Robles, Luke Broadwater, William K. Rashbaum, Ben Protess and Gaya Gupta.