'History-making' court appearance of Trump in Florida in classified doc case

Donald Trump arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of a history-making federal court appearance on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department's efforts to get them back.

Trump's Tuesday afternoon appearance in Miami will mark his second time since April facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case, the Justice Department's first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardised national security, with Espionage Act charges carrying the prospect of a significant prison sentence.

Ahead of his court date, he and his allies have been escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests.

He has 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. He vowed Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family if Trump is elected to a second term.

Trump landed in Miami around 3 pm and got into a waiting SUV. He was expected to huddle with advisors before his court appearance, as he looks to line up additional lawyers following the departure before his indictment last week of two attorneys who had handled the defence for months.

He's 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," Trump said Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and advisor Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio.

"Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We've lost everything," he went on.

He also said there were no circumstances "whatsoever" under which he would leave the 2024 race.

Other Trump supporters have rallied to his defence with similar language, including Kari Lake, the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who pointedly said over the weekend that if prosecutors "want to get to President Trump," they're "going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA".

Trump's calls for protest echoed exhortations he made ahead of a New York court appearance in April, where he faces charges arising from hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign. And just like in that case, he plans to address supporters in a Tuesday evening speech.

After his appearance, he will return to New Jersey, where he's scheduled a press event to publicly respond to the charges. He'll also hold a private fundraiser.

Trump supporters were also planning to head to Miami from other parts of Florida, raising concerns for law enforcement officials. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said the city would be ready, and police chief Manuel A Morales said downtown could see anywhere from a few thousand up to 50,000 protesters.

Morales said, "We are taking this event extremely serious. We know there is a potential of things taking a turn for the worse but that's not the Miami way." The Justice Department unsealed Friday an indictment charging Trump with 37 felony counts, 31 relating to the willful retention of national defence information. Other charges include conspiracy to commit obstruction and false statements.

The indictment alleges Trump intentionally retained hundreds of classified documents that he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House in January 2021. The material he stored included material on nuclear programmes, defence and weapons capabilities of the US and foreign governments and a Pentagon "attack plan", the indictment says.

Beyond that, prosecutors say, he sought to obstruct government efforts to recover the documents.

Some fellow Republicans have sought to press the case that Trump is being treated unfairly, citing the Justice Department's decision in 2016 to not charge Democrat Hillary Clinton for her handling of classified information through a private email server she relied on as secretary of state. But those arguments overlook that FBI investigators did not find any evidence that Clinton or her aides had willfully broken laws regarding classified information or had obstructed the investigation.

New Hampshire Republican Governor Chris Sununu, speaking Sunday on CBS News, said there was a "huge difference" between the two investigations but that it "has to be explained to the American people".

The Justice Department earlier this month informed former Vice President Mike Pence that it would not bring charges over the presence of classified documents in his Indiana home. A separate Justice Department special counsel investigation into the discovery of classified records at a home and office of President Joe Biden continues, though no evidence of obstruction or intentional law-breaking has surfaced.

Trump's former attorney general, William Barr, offered a grim assessment of Trump's predicament, saying on Fox News, "If even half of it is true," Barr said of the allegations, "then he's toast. I mean, it's a pretty -- it's a very detailed indictment, and it's very, very damning. And this idea of presenting Trump as a victim here -- a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous." (AP) SZM