Former President Donald Trump received a hero’s welcome Tuesday night as he returned to his New Jersey golf club after pleading not guilty in Miami federal court to more than three dozen charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving office in 2021.

After taking the stage to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” Trump told a crowd of about a couple hundred supporters he had undergone “political persecution like something straight out of a fascist or communist nation.”

This is a developing story.