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WASHINGTON —Former U.S. President Donald Trump is in Florida to face an indictment accusing him of willfully and illegally retaining highly classified national security documents after his White House tenure ended in early 2021.
Trump left his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf resort late Monday morning and boarded his personal jet at Newark International Airport for the flight to the southern state of Florida. He is staying at his Doral resort overnight before surrendering to federal authorities Tuesday afternoon at the U.S. courthouse in Miami.
His case has been randomly assigned to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor he nominated to the federal bench in 2020. However, Trump's initial courtroom appearance to face the 37-count indictment could be handled by a U.S. magistrate judge. Dates for further court appearances could be set before Trump is released to head back to New Jersey, where he is planning an evening speech.
Special counsel Jack Smith says prosecutors want a "speedy" trial in the case, although it is likely Trump's lawyers will try to push off the date for as long as possible, including until after the November 2024 presidential election. National polls show Trump is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination after losing a reelection bid in 2020 to Democrat Joe Biden, who is running for a second four-year term.
Trump is the first U.S. president to face a federal indictment, although a state grand jury in New York accused him in March of altering business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star in 2016 just ahead of Trump's successful campaign that year to keep her from talking about her claim that she had a one-night tryst with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing, including allegations that he illegally tried to upend the 2020 election results, which Smith and a state prosecutor in the southern state of Georgia are continuing to investigate.
Despite his claim of innocence, Trump over the weekend also acknowledged his legal peril in the classified documents case. If convicted, he could face years in prison.
"Nobody wants to be indicted," he said. Trump has assailed the Justice Department as "a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately," while calling Smith "deranged" and "openly a Trump hater."
He says the classified documents allegations will not end his campaign to reclaim the White House.
"I'll never leave," Trump told Politico, a political news site.
Federal law enforcement agents and Miami police, some with dogs on leashes, searched the courthouse perimeter for explosives in advance of Trump's appearance. Several groups of Trump enthusiasts started to peacefully mass outside the courthouse Monday afternoon as a show of support, with police watching closely to avert any signs of violence.
The indictment alleges that Trump illegally retained 31 documents that "included information regarding defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States 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."
As his presidency ended on January 20, 2021, the indictment said, "Trump was not authorized to possess or retain those classified documents." At various times, the indictment alleges that Trump stored boxes of the documents in a bathroom and shower stall at Mar-a-Lago, his oceanside retreat, and also on a ballroom stage, and in a bedroom, an office and a storage room.
As a former president, Trump could have sought a waiver of the requirement that only people with a "need to know" could continue to retain and look at the documents, but the indictment said that the former president "did not obtain any such waiver after his presidency."
The 37-count indictment against Trump also alleges that the country's 45th president conspired with a personal aide, Walt Nauta, to hide the documents from a Trump attorney, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the grand jury that was hearing evidence in the case. Nauta faces six charges in the case.
Among the other charges, Trump is accused of making false statements to investigators and ordering boxes to be moved to various locations at Mar-a-Lago so that his lawyer would not be able to locate all the documents that federal authorities had subpoenaed.