Former US President Donald Trump will appear in court on Tuesday, where he will be read charges related to the removal of classified materials from the White House, and he will be able to officially declare his innocence.
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In the ongoing process, prosecutors will try to prove that Trump violated the law when, already as a private citizen, he kept information about US military capabilities, plans and vulnerabilities in an unsuitable private residence, disclosed state secrets to outsiders and obstructed the investigation.
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Trump was summoned on Tuesday to appear in federal court in Miami, where he is expected to have a formal reading of the charges against him with an opportunity to answer them, a preventive measure and a schedule for further hearings. During his time in court, Trump will be formally under arrest, media unfriendly to him say.
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Trump has already arrived in Miami. The city introduced enhanced security measures in case of protests by his supporters.
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The former president faces 37 counts of charges with a total penalty of up to 400 years in prison.
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“The secret documents that Trump kept in his boxes included information about the capabilities of the US and foreign countries in defense and weapons, US nuclear programs, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies to military attack, plans for possible responses in the event of an attack from abroad” , the prosecutor says.
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“Unauthorized disclosure of these classified documents could compromise US national security, international relations, the security of the US military, human sources, and the viability of sensitive intelligence gathering methods,” the indictment said.
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Boxes with materials of varying degrees of secrecy up to the highest FBI agents were found at Trump’s residence on the territory of the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. There, according to the investigative materials, from January 2021 to August 2022, events were held for “tens of thousands of members and guests” of the club and there were no conditions for “storage, possession, viewing, displaying or discussing secret documents.”
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The prosecutor’s office claims that it is aware of two cases when Trump, having already left the presidency, showed secret documents to outsiders. In July 2021, he allegedly showed and described “a plan of attack…prepared for him by the Department of Defense” at a meeting with “a writer, a publisher and two members of his staff, none of whom had security clearances.” In August or September of the same year, under similar circumstances, he showed “a secret map related to a military operation.”
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Trump faces 31 counts of “deliberately withholding national defense information” with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison in each case. Charges of “conspiracy to obstruct justice,” “withholding a document or record,” “corruptly withholding a document or record,” and “withholding a document in a federal investigation” face 20 years in prison each. The articles “participation in a cover-up scheme” and “submission of false information and testimony” are fraught with two more five-year terms.
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Trump calls the criminal case interference in the 2024 presidential election, in which he intends to participate, despite the accusations. In public speeches, he recalls that secret documents were also found in the private office and home of the current US President Joe Biden, as well as in the possession of former Vice President Mike Pence, but they are not charged in this regard, as well as ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which, according to Trump, destroyed 33 thousand e-mails with confidential information.
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The prosecutor’s office emphasizes that the claims against Trump are related only to materials that he did not voluntarily return to the national archives. The ex-president also periodically claims that he personally declassified all the materials found from him.
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Earlier, Trump was charged in a New York court with falsifying business records when making payments for concealing compromising information, including an alleged relationship with porn actress Stormy Daniels.
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The former president faces several more criminal cases, including the storming of the Capitol by his supporters who tried to thwart Biden’s victory claim, or an attempt to interfere in the presidential election in Georgia. He allegedly called the state authorities demanding to find the missing votes for victory. Trump denies all accusations and connects their appearance solely with the success of his own election campaign.
