MIAMI — Former President Donald Trump is poised to become the first onetime president to be arrested and arraigned over alleged federal crimes.
It will be a historic moment that once again makes the 2024 Republican nomination front-runner the focal point of the primary process, but it will also render him central to next year's general election, regardless of whether he is the GOP's standard-bearer.
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The Republican primary does not go around Trump but goes through him, according to GOP strategist Douglas Heye.
"As long as the Republicans running for president do not use the indictment to aggressively go after Trump, this benefits him and helps shore up the base," Heye told the Washington Examiner.
"But primaries and general elections are very different things," the former Republican National Committee communications director said. "It's hard to see how any of this helps Trump win back those voters who supported him in 2016 but voted for [President Joe] Biden in 2020.”
Most of Trump's primary rivals have condemned the indictment, brought by special counsel Jack Smith and a Florida grand jury, as an example of government weaponization and the need to, as described by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), “reconstitutionalize” federal agencies. Multimillionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has even promised to pardon Trump if Ramaswamy earns the Republican nod and is elected president. Many have also underscored how the Biden administration is prosecuting the incumbent’s main political opponent, with the prospect of Trump, who maintains he is innocent, either appointing sympathetic Justice Department officials, pardoning himself, or investigating Biden if he wins the White House.
"In the end, they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you — and I'm just standing in their way,” Trump said last weekend during the Georgia Republican Party’s annual convention.
Some Republicans have criticized Trump over Smith’s 37-felony-count, 49-page indictment, which alleges the former president knowingly and willfully mishandled classified documents after he departed the White House and resisted efforts to return them to the National Archives, including former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and ex-Attorney General William Barr.
"If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security," former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said Monday.
In the indictment, which has caused private concern among certain Trump supporters, the government alleges the former president retained 31 documents related to sensitive defense secrets, from nuclear programs to attack plans, shared them with people without clearances on at least two occasions, and was personally involved in the decision to withhold them. He also allegedly kept the documents in unsecured locations, such as in his Mar-a-Lago Palm Beach resort and club’s ballroom to a nearby bathroom beside a toilet. The charges pertaining to the Espionage Act carry a sentence of up to 10 years each and obstructing justice up to 20 years.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?” Trump allegedly told lawyer Evan Corcoran, per the indictment.
As he did after his New York arraignment last spring, Trump's campaign announced last weekend the former president will deliver remarks and attend an expected $2 million fundraiser Tuesday night at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey. The campaign-courtroom juxtaposition will continue this election season, with his classified documents case unlikely to conclude before Nov. 4, 2024, due to motions and appeals. The next court date for his Manhattan criminal matter, regarding 34 counts of allegedly falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made before the 2016 contest for discretion concerning extramarital affairs, is Dec. 4. That trial is set to start on March 24.
Trump arrived in Miami on Monday to meet with his legal team, including Todd Blanche and Lindsey Halligan, before his surrender, booking, and hearing Tuesday at 3 p.m in the city’s downtown federal courthouse, with a Florida-barred attorney required for the proceedings to proceed. Jim Trust and John Rowley are no longer defending the former president despite sitting down with Justice Department representatives last week.
Trump will appear first before U.S. District Court Magistrate Jonathan Goodman on the 13th floor, alongside former White House valet and now the one-term president’s personal aide Walt Nauta, who has also been indicted as a co-conspirator on six counts. Trump-nominated Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, who was scrutinized last year for instructing a “special master” to oversee the Justice Department's documents investigation, will then preside over the rest of the case. Local and federal authorities are on alert for the potential violence or unrest, though the court precinct has only been surrounded with police tape.
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Meanwhile, Smith has remained silent after last week's press statement in which he pledged to “seek a speedy trial” that balances the public interest and the interests of the accused.
“We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone,” he said.