Former United States President Donald Trump pleaded not guilty Tuesday in a Miami court to 37 federal charges for alleged mishandling of classified documents.
The former president was instructed by Judge Jonathan Goodman not to contact possible witnesses. No travel restrictions, both domestic and international, were placed on Trump. He also did not withdraw his passport.
It has not been determined when the next hearing will be, nor the start date of the trial. His former assistant Walt Nauta, a co-defendant in the case, could not be prosecuted because he did not have legal representation in the state of Florida and will have to respond in two weeks.
During the 47-minute hearing, Trump could be seen morose, frowning and not speaking, leaving the defense to his lawyers. Also in the courtroom was special prosecutor Jack Smith, in charge of the prosecution, the first to seek federal charges against a former president in US history.
As he left the courthouse in downtown Miami, Trump greeted supporters, who rushed to the side of the president’s car. In an unannounced stop, the former president’s caravan stopped at the Versailles café, an emblematic place in Miami and a regular meeting point for Cuban exiles.
There he entered the establishment and greeted his supporters, who greeted him with shouts of “We love trump” (We love Trump) and sang congratulations to the former president, who turns 77 this June 14.
At the famous location, a must-see for Republican candidates in Miami, Trump told his supporters that the country had become a “corrupt” and “declining” place.
“We have a government that is out of control,” the former president told a crowd of supporters in what seemed like one more act in his presidential campaign. Florida’s Cuban-American community is a substantial Republican voting bloc in a politically competitive state.
Trump returned to New Jersey shortly after aboard his plane. He is scheduled to hold a fundraising event tonight.
Outside the courthouse earlier in the day, dozens of protesters gathered, for and against the former president, as well as journalists hoping to see Trump upon his arrival. Police and security agents cordoned off the area for security reasons.
Although the confrontations were mostly verbal, the police closed off access to the surrounding streets to investigate a possible bomb threat that they later said did not pose any danger.
Trump arrived in Florida on Monday from New Jersey, in a pause in his campaign for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.
The former US president left his resort in Doral, west of Miami, around 1:30 pm He arrived at the federal court 20 minutes later. He was digitally fingerprinted and officially informed of the charges, before a guilty plea was taken from him at a hearing scheduled for 3 pm local time (19:00 GMT).
The audience was closed to the cameras.
Miami Mayor Francis Suárez told reporters outside the courthouse that there had been no security problem. Suárez had assured that the city was prepared to face protests of up to 50,000 people.
Trump is being prosecuted along with his former aide, Walt Nauta, who was also indicted by the Miami grand jury weeks earlier and has worked with the former president at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago. The indictment alleges that Trump conspired with Nauta to seize classified documents and hide them from a federal grand jury.
The former president is accused of jeopardizing national secrets by taking hundreds of confidential documents with him when he left the White House in January 2021 and carelessly storing them at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida and his New Jersey golf club. The 37 counts include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the unauthorized possession of Defense information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Trump has repeatedly declared his innocence in recent days, dismissing the case as “a protracted witch hunt.” He has also accused President Joe Biden’s administration of attacking him to seek advantage in the upcoming election.
Trump has come to qualify the leader of the prosecution, special counsel Jack Smith, as a “Trump hater” in networks (a term in English that means staunch detractor or hater).
Biden has avoided commenting on the process.
Legal experts say that the case presented by Smith is a strong one. The special prosecutor himself has said that he wants to achieve a “speedy” trial. Even so, analysts predict that it could take a year or more before it reaches the courts, due to the complexities of handling classified evidence and the level of authorization that is required of all those involved.
Trump’s lawyers are also expected to file a large number of motions to challenge Smith’s accusation before it goes to trial, which could lead to further delays.
Meanwhile, Trump is free to campaign for the presidency and could take office even if convicted. In an act in North Carolina this weekend, the former president assured that he would not give up in the race for the White House.
[Con información de Reuters]
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