Former U.S. president Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to dozens of federal charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified materials after he left the White House, a historic moment for the United States and its Justice Department.
Trump entered a federal courtroom in Miami Tuesday afternoon to surrender to authorities. His lawyer entered the not guilty plea on Trump’s behalf in response to 37 criminal counts detailed in an explosive indictment that was unsealed on Friday.
Trump, who reportedly sat silent and stone-faced throughout the hearing, was allowed to leave court without conditions or travel restrictions and no cash bond was required. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman ruled that Trump was not allowed to communicate with potential witnesses in the case.
Trump’s former aide Walt Nauta, who is also charged in the case, appeared in court alongside Trump but will not have to enter a plea until June 27 because he does not have a local lawyer. He, too, was released without having to post bond and was ordered not to talk to other witnesses. Nauta faces six criminal counts, many of them shared with Trump.
The hearing was closed to cameras and live broadcasts.
The appearance marks the second time in three months that Trump has faced a judge on criminal charges, after he was arraigned in April in Manhattan.
Unlike those charges involving hush money payments to cover up an alleged affair, the federal charges are considered much more serious, with prosecutors alleging Trump endangered national security by holding onto top-secret information and failing to properly secure it. Some of the charges, filed under the U.S. Espionage Act, carry the prospect of a significant prison sentence.
After his court appearance, Trump and Nauta went to a Miami restaurant where Trump shook hands with supporters and ordered food for patrons inside.
Later, during a speech to a crowd of supporters at his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, he presented a litany of defences against the charges against him — ignoring the evidence presented in the indictment that he possessed highly classified documents containing some of the nation’s most sensitive information.
“I had every right to have these documents,” he said, falsely.
The Bedminster crowd interrupted the speech to sing “Happy Birthday” after Trump noted the arraignment was held the day before his 77th birthday.
Trump has said there are no circumstances “whatsoever” under which he would leave the 2024 presidential race, where he’s been dominating the Republican primary — even if he is convicted. His campaign has been aggressively fundraising since news of the indictment broke last week, and the speech at Bedminster preceded a private donor event at the club.
He has maintained his innocence in the case and has called on his supporters to protest outside the Miami courthouse.
“ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform shortly before his motorcade left the Trump Doral hotel for the courthouse.
Similar calls for protests at his Manhattan arraignment were met with little enthusiasm. But there were concerns Tuesday would be different amid Republican attacks on the Justice Department, which has never before indicted a former U.S. president and is being accused by Trump supporters of political bias.
Supporters wearing Make America Great Again hats and carrying American flags chanted “Miami for Trump” and “Latinos for Trump” as Trump’s motorcade paused outside the courthouse ahead of his appearance. A man could be heard chanting, “USA! USA!”
As the motorcade left the courthouse following the hearing, supporters lined the streets with many chanting “we love Trump!” The former president could be seen waving to the crowd through the window of his vehicle.
The crowd was smaller than what authorities had prepared for earlier in the week, when up to 50,000 protesters were anticipated.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez told reporters outside the courthouse that there had not been any security problems. A heavy police presence surrounded the courthouse and the surrounding streets.
At least one protester was arrested after attempting to run in front of the motorcade as it left the courthouse. It was not clear if the man was a Trump supporter or a counter-protester.
Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a staunch Trump supporter, noted ominously over the weekend that if prosecutors “want to get to President Trump,” they’re “going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.”
That comment further ramped up fears of violence breaking out at the Miami courthouse or elsewhere in the country, which has has happened before in the case.
After the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago in search of some of the classified materials thrust the investigation into public view, an armed man believed to be an avid Trump supporter stormed an FBI office in Ohio and attempted to break inside. He was later shot dead by authorities after fleeing the scene without harming anyone.
Of the 37 charges facing Trump, 31 counts involve the willful retention of national defence information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.
The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took with him from the White House to his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House in January 2021.
Documents kept by Trump allegedly included information on U.S. and foreign countries’ defence and weapons capabilities, U.S. nuclear programs, U.S. vulnerabilities to potential military attacks, and plans for possible retaliation in response to foreign attacks, according to the indictment.
At least one document kept at Mar-a-Lago was meant only for the intelligence agencies of the Five Eyes alliance of the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Prosecutors say Trump, on at least two occasions, showed classified materials to guests at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club and resort who did not have proper security clearances, including a Pentagon “attack plan” on a foreign country.
The information, if exposed, could have put at risk members of the military, confidential human sources and intelligence collection methods, prosecutors said.
The indictment said Nauta and other aides, at Trump’s direction, repeatedly moved boxes to different rooms around the Mar-a-Lago resort — including a ballroom and bathroom, and later Trump’s personal quarters — and later to Bedminster as lawyers worked to comply with an FBI subpoena for the documents.
Some fellow Republicans have sought to press the case that Trump is being treated unfairly, citing the Justice Department’s decision in 2016 to not charge Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information through a private email server she relied on as secretary of state. But those arguments overlook that FBI investigators did not find any evidence that Clinton or her aides had willfully broken laws regarding classified information or had obstructed the investigation.
The Justice Department earlier this month informed former vice-president Mike Pence that it would not bring charges over the presence of classified documents in his Indiana home. A separate Justice Department special counsel investigation into the discovery of classified records at a home and office of President Joe Biden continues, though as in the Clinton case, no evidence of obstruction or intentional law-breaking has surfaced.
In the Biden and Pence cases, both men and their lawyers quickly returned the documents when their whereabouts became known.
Trump’s own former attorney general, William Barr, offered a grim assessment of Trump’s predicament on Sunday, saying on Fox News that Trump had no right to hold onto such sensitive records.
“If even half of it is true,” Barr said of the allegations, “then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a pretty — it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here — a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous.”
— with files from the Associated Press and Reuters