Pleads not guilty in historic appearance
MIAMI: Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to dozens of criminal counts for mishandling some of the US government’s most sensitive secrets and scheming to prevent their return, in a historic appearance Tuesday in federal court.
The former president, and the favourite to fight next year’s election for the Republicans, gave himself up to US Marshals in Miami for a brief hearing that set up the unprecedented scenario of a White House race litigated from the courtroom as well as at the ballot box.
On the eve of his 77th birthday, Trump appeared before a
magistrate judge to be formally presented with 37 charges brought by a
special counsel probe that opened after an FBI raid of his Florida mansion.
“We are certainly entering a plea of not guilty,” Todd Blanche, his
attorney, told the hearing.
The hearing, just weeks after Trump
denied state-level financial fraud charges in a separate case in Manhattan,
came with the former reality TV star’s mounting legal woes threatening to
derail his bid to return to the Oval Office. The US government accuses Trump
of violating the Espionage Act and other laws when he removed classified
documents upon leaving office in 2021 and failed to give them up to the
National Archives.
Authorities say he conspired to thwart investigators and
knowingly shared national security secrets with people who did not have the
requisite clearance. Trump was heading back to his golf club in Bedminster,
New Jersey, to deliver an evening speech protesting his innocence, but not
before stopping to greet supporters at a Cuban restaurant in Miami’s Little
Havana, where they sang happy birthday in his honour. “We have a country
that’s corrupt,” Trump told the gathering, railing at the charges brought
against him. “A country in decline like never before,” he said. “I think
it’s a rigged deal here.”
The 49-page indictment, dismissed by
Trump as “ridiculous,” includes photographs showing boxes of documents
stacked at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach residence, in a ballroom and in a
bathroom and shower.
He appeared in court with strong backing
from Republican voters, 81 percent of whom believe the charges against the
former president are politically-driven, according to a new Ipsos poll. “In
recent years we have seen the rise of politically-motivated prosecutors who
don’t care for impartiality, who don’t care for due process or equal
protection of laws,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba told CNN. “They have been
quietly but aggressively cultivating a two-tiered system of justice where
selective treatment is the norm.”
