Donald Trump pleads not guilty to classified documents charges

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CNN —

Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to the alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Trump’s lawyers asked for a jury trial during the former president’s arraignment Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Miami.

We definitely entered a plea of ​​not guilty, Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge.

Before the arraignment, deputy marshals booked the former president and took electronic copies of his fingerprints. They didn’t take a mugshot of Trump because he was easily recognizable. The booking process takes about 10 minutes.

Trumps aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta was also arrested, fingerprinted and processed.

Criminal charges over classified documents by the Justice Department have heightened the legal stakes surrounding the 2024 GOP front-runner.

Tuesday’s hearing is expected to be procedural in nature. Trump will enter a plea, there will be a discussion of the conditions of his release before the trial, and it is possible that potential restrictions on Trump’s behavior as the case progresses will be released.

Special counsel Jack Smith attended the arraignment.

Trump faces 37 felony counts, alleging that he illegally retained national defense information and withheld documents in violation of witness tampering laws in the Justice Department’s investigation into the materials.

Nauta, Trump’s close aide, was also charged in the indictment, which was unsealed Friday, alleging the two men conspired to obstruct the federal investigation. Nauta will also appear in court.

Trump left his Doral resort in his motorcade on Tuesday with Nauta, traveling in a separate vehicle. As he got into his car, a bystander asked Trump how he was feeling. Trump said well and waved.

On his social media, Trump posted before heading to court that this is ONE OF THE MOST DARKEST DAYS IN OUR COUNTRY’S HISTORY. WE ARE A GROWING NATION!!!

Tuesday’s hearing will begin what is likely to be a tortuous, dramatic judicial process, with criminal trials and appeals that could run for years. US District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee whose decision last year to order a third-party review of an FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was widely criticized and reversed by a A conservative appeals court was assigned to the case.

Tuesday’s proceedings will be presided over by a magistrate judge, expected to be Jonathan Goodman, who is the judge on duty in Miami this week.

Tuesday’s hearing will serve as both a preliminary appearance and a so-called arraignment, during which Trump has a chance to enter his plea in the case.

Attorneys for Trump and Nautas will appear in court on their behalf, and Florida rules require that defendants have at least one attorney barred from the state represent them.

Attorneys Todd Blanche and Chris Kise are expected to represent Trump in court this afternoon for his arraignment, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. However, Kise’s future role is unclear, and he has been sidelined in recent years’ Mar-a-Lago search proceedings amid the Trump team’s battle.

Another Florida-licensed attorney, Lindsey Halligan who also worked on Trump’s lawsuit last year in the search remains on the Trumps’ team and may be present Tuesday.

Another Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, spoke outside the courthouse before Trump’s arraignment, saying the former president was fighting back. Habba mocked what he called the two-tiered system of justice and called the accusation an unforgiving weapon of the criminal justice system.

At the hearing, the magistrate judge will discuss the bond package that would allow the defendants to stay out of detention while they await trial. There may be requirements that they notify the courts probation office before traveling to certain locations. Prosecutors may also seek to place restrictions on Trump and Nauta barring their contact with witnesses.

Justice Department counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt, who has been a key player in the investigation of the documents so far, is listed in the charges document as representing the government. But attorneys from the Southern District of Floridas US Attorneys office led by US Attorney Markenzy Lapointe, who was confirmed by the Senate in December, are also expected to be present Tuesday. It’s unclear who from Smith’s team will go to trial, or if Smith himself will appear.

Before the final weeks of the federal indictment, Trump also faced criminal charges brought by local New York City prosecutors for an alleged 2016 campaign hush money scheme in which Trump was accused of falsifying business records.

The new charges in the case, DOJ documents, are more serious and show the possibility of several years in prison if Trump is ultimately convicted.

Thirty-one counts Trump faces are for knowingly withholding national defense information, a charge that is not turned on if the documents are classified. In addition to the obstruction conspiracy, he also faces four counts related to concealing documents, as well as a false statement charge.

In a case like this, obstruction and tampering help prove the main allegation, that the defendant knowingly participated in the charge, said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor in the espionage section of the DOJ’s national security division and current senior counsel at Perkins Coie. Those facts can also affect how a judge, jury, or public views the case and can significantly affect the verdict.

With Tuesday’s hearing in the rearview mirror, the case will enter the legal grind of pretrial proceedings, including likely disputes over what evidence will be put before a jury and whether the case should be dismissed entirely. to be disposed of before going to trial. The Trump team will have plenty of opportunities to drag things out possibly until after the 2024 election.

A major x-factor in the prosecution of the case was its assignment to Cannon, who sat in Ft. Pierce, Florida, but was part of a group of judges randomizing cases filed in West Palm Beach, where the new indictment was brought.

There are few things more powerful than a district judge in a federal case, said Alan Rozenshtein, a former attorney in the DOJ National Security Division who is now a professor at the University of Minnesota law school. He can if he wants to cause big problems for the prosecution. Will these become existential problems? I do not think so.

Cannon’s approach in recent years to Trump’s lawsuit challenging the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search has raised eyebrows among legal experts across the ideological spectrum for how he appears to be bending over backwards to create special legal rules in favor of the former president. His rationale for why such a review was necessary was torn apart by a panel of right-leaning appellate judges, including two Trump appointees, at the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in December.

He was shocked by the 11th Circuit that he could be so cautious, Kel McClanahan, a national security lawyer and an adjunct professor at George Washington University Law School, told CNN. We just don’t know.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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