Trump hears document charges

Pleads not guilty in federal court in Miami to 37-count indictment, decries prosecution

Donald Trump on Tuesday became the first former US president to be arraigned on federal criminal charges when his lawyer pleaded not guilty for him in a downtown Miami courthouse to illegally keeping national security documents after leaving office, obstructing efforts to retrieve them and making false statements about the matter.

Trump arrived at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr courthouse in Florida in a motorcade of four black SUVs shortly before 2 pm for the 3 pm scheduled hearing. He rode to the courthouse with his son Eric from the former president's Doral resort. The car with Trump entered an underground garage at the courthouse.

Inside his motorcade, Trump posted social media broadsides against the prosecution insisting he has done nothing wrong and was being persecuted for political purposes.

Outside the courthouse, there were hundreds of supporters and anti-Trump protesters along with hundreds of journalists from around the world. Small groups of supporters and anti-Trump protesters occasionally exchanged obscenities.

Some supporters sang Happy Birthday to Trump who turns 77 Wednesday. They waved American flags, and some waved Trump 2024 flags, supporting his bid for president.

After the hearing, Trump flew to New Jersey, where he delivered remarks at his golf club in Bedminster on Tuesday night.

"This is called election interference. … This day will go down in infamy, and Joe Biden will be forever remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country but perhaps even more importantly the president who together with a band of his closest thugs … tried to destroy American democracy.

"Never before have the two standards of justice in this country been more revealed," Trump said, in mentioning Biden's own possession of classified documents when he was vice-president. In free-wheeling remarks, Trump also brought up incidents involving classified information related to former president Bill Clinton and later his wife, Hillary Clinton, when she was secretary of state and the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate.

He also bristled at the prosecution's use of the Espionage Act, which he said has been used to "go after traders and spies".

In Miami, cameras were banned from inside the federal courthouse, but several reporters were in the courtroom with Trump, and more were in a nearby room watching on a closed video feed.

Trump was booked and escorted into a 13th floor courtroom where he sat with his arms crossed at the defense table while US Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman described the 37-count indictment. One of his lawyers, Todd Blanche, entered a plea on Trump's behalf.

"We most certainly enter a plea of not guilty," he said. Trump also was represented in court by Christopher Kise, a former Florida solicitor general.

Trump faces 37 counts on seven different charges, including willful retention of national-defense information, withholding a record, false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice. All relate to his handling of documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, roughly 70 miles north of the courthouse.

Goodman ordered Trump not to have any contact with witnesses in the case — or his co-defendant Waltine "Walt" Nauta — as the case proceeds. Nauta also was charged last week by special counsel Jack Smith on six counts in the 44-page indictment about the case.

Blanche objected, saying that Nauta and other potential witnesses might be members of Trump's security detail or other staffers who rely on him for their livelihood. The facts of the case, Blanche said, revolve around "everything in President Trump's life".

The judge relented somewhat, saying that Trump shouldn't speak to Nauta or witnesses about the facts of the case. As to which Trump employees might be affected by the restriction, the judge instructed the prosecution team to provide a list.

Nauta and his lawyer sat separately from Trump and his legal team. Nauta appeared before the magistrate judge but didn't enter a plea. A lawyer for Nauta asked for a two-week extension because he needed a local lawyer to sponsor him.

Smith was in the room with three lawyers representing the Justice Department. They did not speak.

With the not guilty plea entered, the government will begin to reveal its evidence through the discovery process. Pretrial motions will be filed and argued. All of that will likely take months.

The trial on the indictment charges will be overseen by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who has issued favorable rulings to Trump in the past and was randomly assigned to the case.

Cannon drew widespread criticism for her handling of the former president's civil case challenging the FBI's seizure of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago last summer.

A ruling in Trump's favor in that case was later overturned by an appeals court that was sharply critical of her legal reasoning.

Smith could either acquiesce to her overseeing the case or he could try to challenge her role and seek her recusal.

Trump, who has a big lead in polls for the 2024 GOP presidential primary, faces other legal trouble. Tuesday was the second time that he has been criminally charged since March when he was indicted in New York City on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment.

He also faces ongoing investigations in Washington and Atlanta into efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential race.

Trump is the clear front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 while 20 percent of likely GOP primary voters think he should be barred from serving as president if he is convicted in any of the 37 charges he faces, according to a CBS News-YouGov poll released Sunday.

Survey respondents said they are more concerned that the charges are politically motivated, as Trump asserts, than worried about his alleged conduct.

Agencies contributed to this story.