5 things you need to know ahead of federal trial in Miami that could indict Trump on 37 criminal charges

Former President and present A Republican primary candidate considering the 2024 presidential election He arrived in Miami this Monday from New Jersey and will spend the night at a hotel he owns in Doral, Miami-Dade County.

Last Friday the 37 criminal charges related to classified documents His Mar-a-Lago home was discovered by the FBI on charges of unlawful concealment of government secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

The attorney general’s office alleges that Trump is “attempting to obstruct FBI and grand jury investigations and withhold classified documents.”

The indictment represents an even more serious legal risk for Trump, less than three months after he was indicted in New York on 34 counts of false business records and a month after a civil court found him guilty of sexual misconduct.

Here’s what you need to know before Tuesday afternoon, when former President Donald Trump is indicted in federal court.

Trump faces 37 counts of mishandling classified documents, according to the indictment, which was unsealed last Friday. Charges range from withholding classified information to making false statements, among other crimes.

Trump is accused of possessing documents related to “America’s nuclear weapons” and “foreign nuclear capabilities,” along with documents from White House intelligence briefings detailing the military capabilities of the nation and other countries. According to the charge sheet.

Prosecutors alleged that Trump showed the documents to people without security clearance to review them, and then tried to hide the documents from his own lawyers when he tried to comply with federal demands to find and return the documents.

After leaving office in 2021, the former president showed an employee of his political action team a map detailing military action overseas, prosecutors allege in the document.

On another occasion that year, Trump showed a military strike plan to a writer, a teacher and two of his staffers, none of whom had security clearances.

Officials with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) contacted Trump in the spring of 2021 when they realized that several documents from his time in the White House were missing.

That is what the Presidential Registration Act says White House documents are the property of the US government Also, they need to be protected.

A Trump representative told NARA in December 2021 that he found out Presidential records At Mar-a-Lago.

In January 2022, NARA recovered 15 boxes of documents from Trump’s home in Florida. The former president’s team told Justice Department officials it had “a lot” of classified material.

In May, the FBI and Justice Department issued subpoenas for the remaining classified documents in Trump’s possession.

Researchers visiting the property a few weeks later found others Three dozen documents And a statement from Trump’s lawyers that all requested information was returned.

But that is not true. Federal authorities returned a third time in August 2022 and, with a search warrant, seized more than 33 boxes and containers with a total of 11,000 documents from a warehouse and office, including 100 classified documents.

In total, approximately 300 documents with classification markings have been recovered from Trump.

From the beginning of the case, the president has maintained that he is innocent and that federal laws protect the retention of documents.

On his Truth Social app, he called his accusations “a dark day for America” ​​last Thursday.

In a video recording, he said: “I am innocent and we will prove it very, very convincingly and very quickly.”

Within 20 minutes of the news, his 2024 presidential campaign sent out a fundraising memo seeking financial support.

Since then, he has been posting about it regularly on social media, lashing out at the special counsel who investigated the case, seeking to pin the blame on President Joe Biden, labeling the investigation a “witch hunt” and declaring, “I have nothing.” Hide, or not now.

It is not yet clear what the procedure will be.

Months earlier, when he was indicted by the Manhattan district attorney in the New York case, Trump turned himself in to authorities, where they recorded him appearing in a courtroom behind closed doors and sitting at the defense table with his attorneys.

The Florida case was initially assigned to Judge Eileen Cannon, who was appointed to the court by Trump and who previously accepted a request for an independent jury to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida property.

However, Tuesday’s hearing will be presided over by Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman and Cannon will continue as the lead judge in the case.

Legal experts say the criminal charges against Trump, who is running for re-election in 2024, could lead to a hefty prison sentence if convicted.

Some charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

However, the other four counts of conspiracy and withholding or concealing documents carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison each.

Neither the indictment nor the conviction will prevent Trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024.

As the New York case showed, criminal charges have historically been a boon to his fundraising.

After the FBI raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, the campaign reported raising more than $4 million in the 24 hours after the indictment was made public.