WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump has arrived at the federal courthouse in Miami where he is scheduled to make his first appearance Tuesday to respond to a 37-count indictment connected to his handling of classified documents and alleged attempts to prevent the government from recovering them.
He is expected to surrender to federal authorities ahead of a scheduled arraignment at 3 p.m. Eastern time.
Following an investigation by special counsel Jack Smith, the Justice Department on Friday unsealed the indictment of the former president, charging that he improperly took and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve hundreds of secret documents — some of them related to U.S. nuclear weapons operations and national defense vulnerabilities — and kept them in unsecured areas of his Florida estate, including a bathroom, ballroom and storage room. The Mar-a-Lago property is a private club that hosts thousands of people each year.
