Global Courant
Amid heightened security measures and expected protests, former President Donald Trump will appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday to face charges of misleading investigators and mishandling the country’s secrets.
Trump, 76, will appear before a magistrate at 3 p.m. ET, when he will face charges along with his co-defendant and aide, Walt Nauta, 40.
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Trump was charged last week with 37 federal felonies, including willful withholding of national defense information, making false statements and statements, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Former President Donald Trump boards a plane in Newark, New Jersey on June 10.Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
The former president, who has struggled to find a local attorney after two members of his legal team resigned Friday, will be represented in his first appearance by attorney Todd Blanche and Chris Kise, the former attorney general of Florida and an ally of Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump’s main GOP rival in 2024, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation.
It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s legal team will include other lawyers on Tuesday.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and claims he was entitled to the documents. He has said the prosecution was politically motivated and vowed to retaliate against President Joe Biden if reelected.
“Now that the ‘seal’ has been broken,” Trump wrote in all caps in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. “I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in US history, Joe Biden.”
Trump is not expected to make any public comments at the courthouse, and he will make remarks at his estate in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Tuesday night. The event was originally planned as a private fundraiser for his 77th birthday, which is Wednesday.
There will be no “mugshot” of Trump during the booking process, a law enforcement source told NBC News, with an existing photo uploaded to the government’s secure booking database, which is not publicly accessible. He will be electronically fingerprinted.
Trump will be required to provide personal information such as his phone number, address and social security number as part of the process. His hand is also digitally scanned, without the use of ink.
Miami Police Chief Manny Morales said Monday the city is bracing for the possibility of thousands of protesters at the courthouse and has coordinated with federal, state and local partners “to make sure we’re not just maintaining peace and order” , but also the ability to direct protesters “to express themselves and their First Amendment rights.”
Hundreds of spectators, journalists and activists gathered outside the courthouse, but only 20 are allowed to enter the venue for Trump’s performance.
The indictment says Trump’s claim to the documents expired the moment he left office, but that he deliberately withheld top secret and other secret documents, in some cases more than a year and a half after he left office. It alleges that he kept a trove of classified documents even after being hit with a subpoena for their return and that he misled his lawyers into believing they had all been returned.
The documents “contain information on defense and weapons capabilities of both the US and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack,” the indictment said.
He also treated that information arrogantly — sometimes keeping it on stage in the ballroom of his Florida resort and in a bathroom next to a toilet, the filing alleges.
An image in the indictment shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.Justice through AP
During the time Trump kept the documents around his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, the club hosted “more than 150 social events, including weddings, movie premieres and fundraisers that collectively drew tens of thousands of guests,” the indictment said.
It also challenges Trump’s claim that the documents were secured by his Secret Service aide, claiming agents had no idea the documents were there. “Trump did not inform the Secret Service that he stored boxes of classified documents at the Mar-a-Lago Club,” prosecutors said.
The court file does not address how prosecutors knew this was the case. Sources familiar with the case said last week that investigators questioned about two dozen Secret Service agents.
Regardless of the filing notes, the agency is “not responsible for protecting Trump’s boxes or their contents.”
The indictment said that disclosure of some of the contents of the documents “could jeopardize the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of U.S. military and human resources, and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence-gathering methods.” to take.”
Nauta is accused of helping Trump hide documents and lying to investigators about his involvement with and knowledge of the boxes and their contents.
Nauta’s attorney, Stan Woodward, has declined to comment on the charges against his client, who was a military clerk in the Trump White House.
The jurist presiding over Tuesday’s proceedings, Magistrate Judge John Goodman, will not oversee the case in court. Court officials said the case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who last year temporarily stopped the FBI from examining the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago.
Her ruling was overturned by a panel of appeals court judges who suggested that Cannon had attempted to “create an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents.”
