UPDATE: Donald Trump arrives court, placed under arrest
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Former United States President Donald Trump has arrived Miami federal court to face charges involving criminal possession of classified documents.
President Trump was slammed with a 38-point charge and has been arrested in Miami federal court for his arraignment in blockbuster Mar-a-Lago documents case.
Trump entered custody ahead of his historic court appearance to face federal charges that he withheld classified records from the government after leaving office and attempted to obstruct their return.
At the court hearing, US Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman is expected to let the former president walk free ahead of an expected criminal trial, rather than remain in jail or have a bond imposed upon him.
Trump was expected to plead not guilty to the 37 criminal counts brought against him in an indictment from Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Trump is the first former president to be charged by federal prosecutors, and now the first former president to be forced to show up in a federal courthouse and proclaim his innocence. Secret Service agents escorted him to his court appearance as crowds looked on.
On Friday, the court unsealed a 38-count indictment against Trump and Waltine Nauta, one of his personal aides.
Prosecutors accused Trump of violating the Espionage Act 31 times by illegally holding onto sensitive national security documents in his Mar-a-Lago home when he left the office of the presidency in January 2021, and refusing to hand them back to the National Archives.
Trump also conspired to obstruct justice, lied to law enforcement, and violated three different statutes related to withholding and concealing government records, according to the indictment.
Nauta, a co-defendant in the case, is expected to enter a not guilty plea Tuesday to the six counts against him, also related to how he handled the documents.
This is the second pending criminal case against Trump.
In April, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office brought a 34-count indictment against him alleging he illegally falsified business records with payments to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
He sought to keep the porn star silent before voters went to the polls about the affair she says she had with him.
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Trump has railed against both prosecutions as politically motivated.
The precise nature of the 31 documents that are the subject of the indictment remains the subject of some mystery.
The records contain information about US nuclear programs and “potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack,” among other secrets, according to the indictment.
Eight documents were considered so sensitive that even their classification markings were redacted from court filings.
The case is set to proceed before US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who issued extraordinary rulings that slowed down the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump last year before an appeals court overturned her decisions.
Trump is still building his legal team.
Two of the lawyers representing him in the investigation, James Trusty and John Rowley, resigned the day after he was indicted. Read more.
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