Meet Me in Miami: Trump to Appear in Federal Court for Arraignment in Classified Documents Case

Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in federal court today in Miami to be arraigned on 37 felony charges accusing him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover them.

Summary

Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in federal court today in Miami to be arraigned on 37 felony charges accusing him of mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to recover them.

• Trump flew to Miami on Monday and spent the night at his nearby Trump Doral resort ahead of his court appearance.
• Trump’s arraignment will be the second one this year following the New York “hush money” case in April.
• The court appearance underscores the historic nature of Trump’s legal troubles: he will be the first president or presidential candidate to appear in federal court to face charges that, if convicted, could see him spend the rest of his life in prison.
• A Reuters/Ipsos poll released the day before the arraignment showed Trump remains in pole position in the GOP presidential primary.
• Trump leads Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis by 43%-22%, which is a tighter margin than the last poll in early May. Additionally, 81% of GOP voters said they believe the charges are politically motivated.

• CNN reported Trump’s legal team is actively searching for attorneys to represent him in Florida. Todd Blanche, a defense attorney who represented Trump in the New York “hush money” case, will appear with Trump in court later today. After Trump’s attorneys resigned on Friday, “Trump has had difficulties retaining seasoned attorneys as he faces an increasingly complicated web of legal troubles, and some firms are reluctant to take on Trump as a client because of concerns about reputational impacts and alienating other clients.”
• Once Trump hires a legal team, the New York Times argued his team “will face a more significant challenge: how to rebut the charges in a criminal case in which their options may be limited.” Trump’s chances of getting the case dismissed appear “highly unlikely” as the evidence cited in the indictment “is perhaps the most daunting problem facing whatever legal team Mr. Trump settles on.”
• Politico assessed how the presence of District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who ruled favorably for him in legal proceedings around the Mar-a-Lago raid last year, could affect Trump’s case. Cannon has significant sway over the “pace of the case,” jury selection, and admissible evidence.

• Breitbart covered Trump’s all-caps Truth Social post vowing to appoint “A REAL SPECIAL ‘PROSECUTOR’” to “GO AFTER” Joe Biden and “THE ENTIRE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY” should he win a second term. It’s unclear what Trump meant by the scare quotes he used around “prosecutor.”
• National Review’s Andrew C. McCarthy argued, “People in their right minds who care about the country could never defend the factual details of Donald Trump’s conduct, as alleged in the federal indictment unsealed last week.” McCarthy went on to dissect what he called the ”frivolous arguments against the Mar-a-Lago indictment” and called them “laughably” weak.
• Trump is starting to take flak on the indictment from GOP primary opponents not named Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie. According to the New York Post, Nikki Haley has changed her tune on Trump’s indictment since its release. While she initially called it “prosecutorial overreach,” she now says, “If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security.”

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© Dominic Moore, 2023