Donald Trump set to appear in Miami court on charges he stole classified documents
Donald Trump has spent the night at his golf club in Doral just outside Miami ahead of his historic federal court appearance.
The former president will appear at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Court House at 3pm (8pm UK time) on charges he stole classified documents and lied to block efforts to get them back.
Trump touched down in his private plane on Monday afternoon.
A small group of supporters gathered outside the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, cheering as his motorcade drove past.
He faces 37 felony counts over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, as well as claims he obstructed justice and made false statements.
Pictures released by the Department of Justice as part of its unsealed indictment showed boxes of documents stacked inside his Mar-a-Lago estate, including in a bathroom.
Details on nuclear weapons programmes, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies, and plans for retaliatory military attacks were in some of the documents, according to prosecutors.
Roughly 13,000 documents were seized in raids on the property nearly a year ago. One hundred of them were marked as classified.
Prosecutors say Trump’s hoarding of papers from his time as president jeopardised national security – and the Espionage Act charges carry the prospect of up to 20 years in jail.
Writing on his Truth Social site before boarding his flight, he said: “I hope the entire country is watching what the radical left are doing to America.”
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Trump National Doral resort in Doral, Florida Pic: AP
However some of Mr Trump’s Republican challengers for the presidential nomination appear to be shifting their tone.
Speaking to Fox News, Nikki Haley said: “If this indictment is true… President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security… This puts all of our military men and women in danger.”
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It is the first federal indictment of a former president, but Mr Trump claims he is being persecuted in an attempt to stop him becoming president again in 2024.
Polls suggest his supporters overwhelmingly believe the charges are politically motivated.
In a weekend CBS News poll of Republican voters, just 12% said their biggest concern about the indictment was the fact that the documents posed a national security risk.
More than three-quarters (76%) said their biggest concern was that the indictment is politically motivated.
Trump supporter Pete Crotty outside the former president’s golf club in Doral, Florida Pic; AP
Protesters in Miami raised allegations about President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents, which remain under investigation, and the Hilary Clinton email scandal.
But speaking to Sky News, a former federal prosecutor who almost prosecuted Richard Nixon over Watergate, and declined to represent Donald Trump last year said there were distinct differences between the cases.
“The big difference is cooperation,” Jon Sale said.
“When President Trump was served a subpoena last spring, if he had told his lawyer, ‘Look, I want to turn over everything; I want to comply with the subpoena. Do a diligent search – everything we have, turn it over to the grand jury’, then you and I wouldn’t be here today.”
Miami police’s chief said he was expecting up to 50,000 people on the streets for today’s hearing and that downtown roads could be closed if necessary.
The former president will be fingerprinted. He will have a mugshot taken but it will not be released and there will be no cameras of any sort in the courtroom itself. He will have the charges read out to him and enter a plea. The case will then be adjourned.
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Mr Trump, who turns 77 this week, is also due to go on trial next March over separate claims that he falsified business records to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity. And there’s another case against him in Georgia for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Scheduling for the three trials could mean that this case is not completed before the November 2024 presidential election.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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