Extract from ABC News
Former US president Donald Trump has arrived in Miami to face criminal charges of unlawfully keeping US national security documents and lying to officials who tried to recover them, in a case that so far has powered rather than hampered his re-election hopes.
Key points:
- Mr Trump is due at court in Miami on Tuesday afternoon (local time)
- Supporters have gathered outside a Miami golf club he owns
- The mayor of Miami is due to speak about additional security outside the court where Mr Trump is scheduled to appear
Mr Trump was scheduled to be in a Miami federal courthouse on Tuesday at 3pm (local time) for an initial appearance in the case.
He has proclaimed his innocence and vowed to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in the 2024 election.
Mr Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, left his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey by motorcade and flew from Newark on his private jet to Miami.
Supporters gathered nearby for a noon rally at a Miami golf club he owns, where he was due to stay the night.
"I hope the entire country is watching what the radical left are doing to America," he wrote on his Truth Social social media platform before his plane, emblazoned with the name TRUMP, took off for the less than three-hour flight.
Mr Trump has encouraged supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse Tuesday, where he will face the charges and surrender to authorities.
"We need strength in our country now," Mr Trump said on Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio.
"And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out."
"Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We've lost everything.
He also said there were no circumstances "whatsoever" under which he would leave the 2024 race, where he's been dominating the Republican primary.
Officials raise security concerns
His legal woes have yet to dent his popularity among Republican voters, and opinion polls show him far ahead of his rivals for the party's presidential nomination.
Mr Trump's legal woes have not affected his popularity among Republican voters.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday found that 81 per cent of Republicans thought the charges were politically motivated.
The poll also found Mr Trump continued to lead his rivals for the party's presidential nomination by a wide margin.
Some 43 per cent of self-identified Republicans said Mr Trump was their preferred candidate, compared to the 22 per cent who picked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Mr Trump's closest rival.
In early May, Mr Trump led Mr DeSantis 49 per cent to 19 per cent, but that was before Mr DeSantis formally entered the race.
He spoke to an enthusiastic crowd in Georgia over the weekend and his campaign said he would make a statement on Tuesday night, when he returns to New Jersey.
With memories fresh of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol, officials have raised security concerns.
Trump supporters were also planning to load onto buses to head to Miami from other parts of Florida.
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was expected to announce additional details about security preparations, though there was little police presence near the courthouse.
Trump's ongoing legal woes
Ahead of his court date, Mr Trump and his allies have been escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests.
He's ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case, calling Jack Smith "deranged" as he repeated without any evidence his claims that he was the target of a political persecution.
And even as his supporters accuse the Justice Department of being weaponised against him, Mr Trump vowed to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family if elected to a second term.
Mr Smith accuses Mr Trump of taking thousands of papers containing some of the nation's most sensitive national security secrets when he left the White House in January 2021 and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate, according to a grand jury indictment released last week.
Photos included in the indictment show boxes of documents stored on a ballroom stage, in a bathroom and strewn across a storage-room floor.
The indictment alleges Mr Trump lied to officials who tried to get them back.
Mr Trump was the first former or current president to face criminal charges, but legal experts said that does not prevent him from running for president — or taking office even if he is found guilty.
Legal experts, including Mr Trump's former attorney-general William Barr, said the case was a strong one.
The charges include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalises unauthorised possession of defence information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Any federal trial in Florida may not take place until after the November 2024 presidential election.
Mr Trump also was due to go on trial in March 2024 in a separate case in New York state court, stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
Mr Trump has accused Mr Biden of orchestrating the federal case to undermine his campaign.
Mr Biden has kept his distance from the case and declines to comment on it.
Mr Smith has been investigating Trump's effort to overturn his 2020 loss to Mr Biden.
Wires/ABC
No comments:
Post a Comment