Miami braces for Trump’s historic indictment over Mar-a-Lago papers
City officials say they are preparing to handle the presence of “up to 50,000″ supporters of the former president.
Donald Trump boarded his private plane late Monday morning at Newark (New Jersey) airport en route to Miami. From there, he went to his hotel with a golf course in Doral, a city in Miami Dade County, to spend the night before his date with history. A federal judge in the city, John Goodman, is waiting for him on Tuesday to read him the 37 charges against him for taking a hundred boxes containing some 13,000 documents, 300 of them classified, from the White House without permission in January 2021 to his residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.
Queue this Monday afternoon to enter the Miami courthouse where Donald Trump is scheduled to appear first thing Tuesday morning. JOE RAEDLE (GETTY IMAGES VIA AFP)
He faces seven federal felonies that carry sentences of up to 400 years. He is scheduled to plead not guilty to intentionally withholding sensitive national defence information, withholding and concealing papers from federal investigators and forgery, as well as conspiracy to obstruct justice with one of his employees, Walt Nauta.
As of Monday night, it was still unclear whether he would be fingerprinted or subjected to the typical front and profile photographs that are normally taken of defendants in the United States. In April, when he appeared before a Manhattan judge charged with an alleged payment to bury an extramarital affair with porn actress Stormy Daniels, he was spared both drinks. After his arraignment, he plans to return to New Jersey, where he has spent the past few days at another of his lavish golf course residences. At 8.15pm he will turn a private event he had scheduled with donors into a press appearance to react to the latest court news. He will be 77 on Wednesday.
“We’re prepared for what’s coming,” Miami Dade Mayor Francis Suarez, a Republican, told a downtown police station on Monday, flirting with the idea of running for president, perhaps as soon as this week. In that race he would face Trump, who has announced that the new indictment will not change his plans for the White House. US law allows him to do so. He could also be president even if he is convicted.