(CN) — The start of a historic and lengthy legal process that will have major repercussions for the 2024 presidential race is set to begin Tuesday afternoon as Donald Trump appears before a Miami federal judge to face federal charges,
Presiding over the hearing is U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman, who was appointed in 2010 not by the president but by judges within the Southern District of Florida. Addressing the two defendants — Trump was indicted alongside his longtime aide Walt Nauta — Goodman will inform the men of the charges against them and asked how they respond to them. Trump has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the days since he received the indictment and is unlikely to change his tune later today.
Trump alone faces the bulk of the indictment unsealed Friday, 31 counts of which accuse the former president of willfully retaining national security documents. He and Nauta are charged together on five counts related to obstruction and concealing documents, then each is charged individually for making false statements.
The magistrate judge is expected to set a date at the hearing for Trump and Nauta's next appearance, this time before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who will preside over the eventual trial. Trump tapped Cannon for the bench in 2020. When the case against Trump was still in its infancy last year, it was Cannon who initially blocked the government from using the classified documents seized at his Florida resort home, Mar-a-Lago. That decision, considered the first major one of Cannon's career, was derided by legal experts around the country for treating the former president differently than any other citizen and was soon overturned by the 11th Circuit.
Prosecutors in the indictment have attempted to paint a picture of Trump’s knowledge and intent to keep highly sensitive documents. While the inner workings of a person's mind is normally difficult to prove, the government also has records of comments Trump made while sharing apparent military plans to attack Iran.
“This is secret information … this was done by the military and given to me,” Trump said in one such note, speaking with a person who is not unidentified. “See as president I could have declassified it. ... Now I can’t, you know, but this is still secret.”
Black and white photos show stacks of boxes stored in unorthodox places throughout Mar-a-Lago, such as an office, an event space and a bathroom.
Another conversation recorded in the indictment purportedly shows his clear intent to obstruct the FBI’s investigation.
“What happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?” Trump asked his former attorney Evan Corcoran in May 2022. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
Corcoran has since left Trump’s legal team, as did two more lawyers, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, who announced their resignations Friday morning before the indictment was unsealed. Trump will now be represented by Todd Blanche, a former partner with Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft before starting his own legal firm.
Trump’s arrival in Miami has raised safety concerns around the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Courthouse as supporters have taken to social media to express their intent to protest outside.
Miami Police Chief Manny Morales said in a press conference on Monday that he and his officers would be prepared whether 5,000 or 50,000 people arrive outside the courthouse before Trump is set to appear before Goodman at 3 p.m.
“Make no mistake about it, we’re taking this event extremely serious,” Morales said. “We know that there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse.”
There were similar safety concerns when Trump was set to be arraigned in Manhattan on charges of falsifying business records stemming from the payment of hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. While some supporters did arrive outside the courthouse, there was no reports of violence.
In Southern Florida, however, Trump has far more supporters than he did in Manhattan, where President Joe Biden won 86.7% of the vote. While Trump lost large metropolitan areas like Miami, he was close behind Biden, garnering over 500,000 votes in Miami-Dade County.
Republicans in Congress, such as Louisiana Representative Clay Higgins, called on their base to turn out on Tuesday, raising concerns of possible violence in Miami.
“Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all,” Higgins tweeted Thursday night after Trump had revealed that he had been charged, using military planning terminology for preparing to make contact with an enemy.
Prior to arriving at his Doral resort in Miami on Monday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to rally his supporters.
“We must all be STRONG and DEFEAT the Communists, Marxists, and Radical Left Lunatics that are systematically destroying our country,” he wrote.
In addition to the ongoing prosecution in Manhattan, Trump also faces criminal probes over his role in planning the insurrection and for having asked Georgia election officials to find more votes so he could masquerade as the winner of the 2020 election. The indictment in Florida made him the first former president to face federal charges.
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