Donald Trump pleads not guilty to classified documents charges
(CNN) — Former President Donald Trump has pleaded not guilty to 37 charges related to 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 most certainly enter 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 did not to take a mugshot of Trump since he is easily recognizable. The booking process took about 10 minutes.
Trump’s aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta was also arrested, fingerprinted and processed.
The criminal charges in the Justice Department’s classified documents case escalates the legal jeopardy 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 pretrial release, and it’s possible that potential restrictions around Trump’s conduct as the case moves forward are brought up.
Special counsel Jack Smith is attending the arraignment.
Trump is facing 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.
Nauta, Trump’s close aide, was also charged in the indictment, unsealed Friday, which alleges the two men engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct the federal investigation. Nauta also will be appearing in court.
Trump left his Doral resort in his motorcade Tuesday along with Nauta, who was traveling in a separate vehicle. As he got in his vehicle, a bystander asked Trump how he was feeling. Trump said “great” and waved.
On his social media, Trump posted before heading to court that it was “ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!”
Tuesday’s hearing will kickstart what will likely be a winding, dramatic judicial process, with criminal and appeal proceedings that may play out for years. US District Judge Aileen Cannon – a Trump nominee whose decision last year to order a third-party review of an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago was widely criticized and overturned by a conservative appeals court – has been assigned the case.
Tuesday’s proceedings will be overseen by a magistrate judge, expected to be Jonathan Goodman, who is the magistrate on duty in Miami this week.
