Former US president Donald Trump has arrived in Miami to face federal criminal charges as a poll found the case had not dented his re-election hopes.
Mr Trump is scheduled to be in a Miami federal courthouse on Tuesday at 3pm (5am Wednesday AEST) for an initial appearance in the case.
Accused of unlawfully keeping US national-security documents and lying to officials who tried to recover them, Mr Trump has proclaimed his innocence and vowed to continue his campaign to regain the presidency in a November 2024 election.
Mr Trump, who turns 77 on Wednesday, touched down in Miami on Monday (local time) in a private jet with his name emblazoned on the side.
Supporters gathered outside a nearby golf club he owns, where he was due to stay the night.
“I HOPE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY IS WATCHING WHAT THE RADICAL LEFT ARE DOING TO AMERICA,” he wrote on his Truth Social social-media platform before departing from New Jersey.
Mr Trump’s legal woes have not affected his popularity among Republican voters.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday found 81 per cent of Republicans thought the charges were politically motivated.
The poll also found Mr Trump continues to lead his rivals for the party’s presidential nomination by a wide margin.
Some 43 per cent of self-identified Republicans said Mr Trump was their preferred candidate, compared to 22 per cent who picked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
In early May, Mr Trump led DeSantis 49 per cent to 19 per cent, but that was before DeSantis formally entered the race.
Mr Trump spoke to an enthusiastic crowd in Georgia over the weekend and his campaign said he would make a statement on Tuesday night, when he returned to New Jersey.
With memories fresh of the January 6, 2021, assault by Mr Trump supporters on the US Capitol, officials have raised security concerns.
Miami police chief Manny Morales said the city was planning for a crowd size of up to 50,000 people and would close roads in the downtown area if necessary.
Special Counsel Jack Smith accuses Mr Trump of taking thousands of papers containing some of the nation’s most sensitive national-security secrets when he left the White House in January 2021 and storing them in a haphazard manner at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate, according to a grand jury indictment released last week.
Photos included in the indictment show boxes of documents stored on a ballroom stage, in a bathroom and strewn across a storage-room floor.
The indictment alleges Mr Trump lied to officials who tried to get them back.
Mr Trump is the first former or current US president to face criminal charges, but legal experts say that does not prevent him from running for president – or taking office even if he is found guilty.
Legal experts, including Mr Trump’s former attorney-general William Barr, say the case is a strong one.
The charges include violations of the Espionage Act, which criminalises unauthorised possession of defence information, and conspiracy to obstruct justice, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Any federal trial in Florida may not happen until after the November 2024 presidential election. Mr Trump also is due to go on trial in March 2024 in a separate case in New York state court, stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star.
Mr Trump accuses Democratic President Joe Biden of orchestrating the federal case to undermine his campaign. Mr Biden has kept his distance from the case and declines to comment on it.
Mr Smith, the special counsel leading the prosecution, is given a greater degree of independence than other Justice Department prosecutors, to try to minimise political factors. He is also investigating Mr Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 loss to Mr Biden.
