Donald Trump headed for Florida on Monday ahead of his expected Tuesday arraignment on 37 federal counts related to his retention of classified records with resounding backing from Republican voters and growing opposition among senior GOP senators.
According to a CBS News/YouGov poll, 80% of likely Republican voters think Trump should remain eligible for re-election to the presidency even if he is convicted.
However, an unnamed former Senate aide told the Hill that leaders including Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, and his deputy, John Thune, want Trump “to go away, so they wouldn’t be very upset if this is the thing that finally takes him out”.
Trump faces an array of charges over his retention of classified documents including national security information, under the Espionage Act and as laid out in the indictment dramatically unsealed on Friday.
Added to his state indictment in New York, over a hush money payment to the porn star Stormy Daniels, the first former president ever to face criminal charges now faces 71 counts.
Trump denies all wrongdoing, including in other cases involving election subversion, his business affairs and a $5m fine levied in New York after he was found liable for sexual assault and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll.
Trump pleaded not guilty in the New York hush money case and is expected to do so again in the federal classified records case in Florida on Tuesday. He is slated to speak at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey on Tuesday night following the hearing.
The former president, who will turn 77 on Wednesday, is reportedly searching for new legal representation but on Sunday the CBS News/YouGov poll gave him some cheerful reading.
As well as 80% backing among likely Republican voters for running even if convicted, the same survey showed 76% thought the indictment was politically motivated and 61% said the case would not change their view of Trump either way.
Charges in the classified records case carry sentences of up to 20 years and fines of $250,000.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the charges and who continues to investigate Trump’s election subversion, told reporters on Friday he would seek “a speedy trial … consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused”.
Trump responded with anger and defiance. Smith has also become a target for the former president’s competitors in the Republican primary he dominates.
From Trump’s closest challenger, Ron DeSantis, to his former vice-president, Mike Pence, major and minor candidates have criticised the special counsel and claimed Trump is being treated unfairly.
So have Trump allies in Congress, notably including the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who spilled into anger during an interview with ABC on Sunday.
“I think Donald Trump is stronger today politically than he was before,” Graham said. “We’ll have an election, and we’ll have a trial, but I promise you this: most Americans believe, most Republicans believe, that the law is used as a weapon against Donald Trump.”
Graham also said that though he was “not justifying [Trump’s] behaviour”, he would “not change my support for Donald Trump”.
Republicans in a House caucus dominated by the far right have flocked to Trump’s defence but senior senators have long taken a more distant approach.
Responding to the indictment, the Utah senator Mitt Romney, a former presidential nominee, said: “Mr Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so.”
