Tokyo, 15 June, /AJMEDIA/
Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to alleged mishandling of classified documents, AJMEDIA reported.
Trump’s lawyers asked for a jury trial during the former president’s arraignment Tuesday at a federal courthouse in Miami. “We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty,” Trump attorney Todd Blanche told the judge.
During the hearing, Trump sat hunched over with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. He did not speak.
Trump’s aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, was also arrested, fingerprinted and processed. He had an initial appearance Tuesday but will not be arraigned until June 27.
The criminal charges in the Justice Department’s classified documents case escalates the legal jeopardy surrounding the 2024 GOP front-runner. Special counsel Jack Smith attended Tuesday’s arraignment.
Trump faces 37 felony counts, alleging he illegally retained national defense information and that he concealed documents in violation of witness-tampering laws in the Justice Department’s probe into the materials.
After the court hearing, Trump made an unannounced stop at Versailles, a well-known Cuban restaurant in Miami. Trump was surrounded by dozens of his supporters inside the restaurant, shaking hands and snapping photos with them.
“Food for everyone,” Trump told those gathered as they cheered.
At one point, Trump’s supporters sang him “happy birthday.” Trump’s birthday is on Wednesday.
“Some birthday, we got a government that is out of control,” Trump could be heard saying.
Following the restaurant stop, Trump flew back to New Jersey Tuesday evening where he spoke publicly at his Bedminster resort about what he called the “fake and fabricated charges.” The former president claimed he had “every right to have these documents” and said prosecutors “ought to drop this case immediately because they’re destroying our country.”
“They should never have done this,” he told the gathered crowd. “This was an unwritten rule, you just don’t unless it’s really bad. But you just don’t. But the seal is now broken.”
Before last week’s federal indictment, Trump also faced criminal charges brought by New York City’s local prosecutors for an alleged hush money scheme in the 2016 campaign in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records.
The new charges in the DOJ documents case are drastically more serious and present the possibility of several years in prison if Trump is ultimately convicted.
Thirty-one counts that Trump faces are for willful retention of national defense information, a charge that does not turn on whether the documents are classified. In addition to the obstruction conspiracy, he also faces four counts related to the concealment of the documents, as well as a false statements charge.
“In a case like this, obstruction and tampering help prove the main charge, that the defendant willfully engaged in the charged conduct,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor in espionage section of the DOJ’s national security division and a current senior counsel at Perkins Coie. “Those facts could also affect how a judge, the jury, or the public views the case and could substantially affect sentencing.”
