Trump was charged last week with 37 counts related to more than 100 classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago last August. The allegations include willful withholding of national defense information and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Trump will be represented by attorney Todd Blanche in his first court appearance, according to an NBC News source with direct knowledge of the situation. Former Florida Solicitor General Chris Kise will also represent Trump. Earlier, the former White House chief ditched the old team of lawyers.
U.S. Marshal John Goodman will preside over the impeachment, but the case will be overseen by Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Eileen Cannon, who ruled in his favor in an earlier dispute in the investigation. In a court order late Monday, a federal judge said members of the media would not be allowed to have electronic devices in the courthouse during arraignment. If they do not comply with this decision, they risk up to 30 years in prison.
After the impeachment, Trump is expected to return to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to deliver a speech Tuesday night. He spent last night at Trump National Doral Miami after arriving from New Jersey.
On the eve of the hearing, Donald Trump and some Republicans drew comparisons between his handling of classified information and that of President Joe Biden and then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but the cases differ significantly. The FBI spent months investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email account as secretary of state to determine whether she mishandled classified information by sending it through an unsecured private server. Federal investigators determined she had been “grossly negligent” in her handling of classified information, but the investigation did not rise to the level of a felony or a warrant of indictment.
Biden’s attorneys found a “small amount” of classified Obama administration documents in a locked filing cabinet at the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, according to a special adviser to the president. The White House prosecutor’s office notified the National Archives the same day, and officials retrieved the documents the next day, and Biden’s personal attorneys cooperated with federal officials throughout the process, the entourage noted. of Biden.
In Trump’s case, the National Archives contacted his aides shortly after he left to say some documents appeared to be missing, and after months of negotiation, Trump sent 15 boxes of Mar-a-Lago documents, some of them contained classified documents. . The FBI later received information that Trump had more government documents and issued a subpoena to return them, then learned that Trump had not fully complied with the subpoena. A search at Mar-a-Lago later uncovered more than 100 classified documents, ultimately leading to charges against the former president by Special Counsel Jack Smith on 37 federal counts of unlawful possession of classified documents. Trump called the investigation “the greatest witch hunt of all time.” As the special prosecutor said, the documents were found in the ballroom, shower room. At the same time, as observers point out, there are 33 separate bathrooms on the Trump estate at Mar-a-Lago.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy repeatedly dodged questions about the merits of Trump’s accusation, turning his attention to President Biden. When asked if any aspects of Trump’s indictment could be damning, McCarthy replied, “There are some things that could be damning about President Biden.”
The area around the Miami Federal Courthouse, where former President Donald Trump is due to appear, has been placed under a “soft lockdown”, reports CNN. Law enforcement regulates traffic and cuts off crowds. Miami Police Chief Manny Morales told the broadcaster that security operations “are going very well so far”, adding that there were no reports of incidents during the protests outside the courthouse.
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