For the first time in history, a former president has been indicted: Donald Trump was arraigned in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman Tuesday afternoon in the federal courthouse in Miami.
His lawyer entered a plea of not guilty to the 37 counts against him, including six federal criminal charges, conspiracy to obstruct, withholding a document or record, and scheme to conceal. Trump never said a word in court as Special Counsel Jack Smith sat not far behind him, observing the proceedings. Trump has called him a “deranged lunatic.”
Trump was fingerprinted electronically but was not handcuffed, and left the courtroom in preparation for a fundraising event in New Jersey. For the most part, it was the resumption of his campaign before a large gathering of supporters later that evening, where despite the indictment, he remained the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the primary. He said his ordeal was “a criminal prosecution like something right out of a communist fascist nation…just another attempt to rig and steal an election.”
Once again he brought up a Clinton—this time Bill, who was never indicted. He repeatedly evoked his presidential authority to possess the classified documents, even though he was no longer president when he removed the boxes in question to his private club at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump harped on the Presidential Records Act, noting that when authorities raided his home in Florida, they found “nothing, there was nothing in the safe.”
Moreover, he claimed that President Joe Biden had lots of classified documents and nothing ever happened to him. “They were spying on my campaign…to protect the radical left.” He claimed again that he was right about Biden taking bribes. He said when he is re-elected he will completely destroy the Deep State “and we will make America great again.”
The speech was little more than a half-hour of harangue and a litany of typical falsifications and disinformation, much of which will surface again whenever the trial takes place, perhaps sometime as the 2024 election campaign is gathering steam.
There is sure to be a lot of legal blather, demands to dismiss the trial, all sorts of tactics to delay it. Such measures will give Trump even more time to appeal to and arouse his base, which nowadays doesn’t take too much with the indictment in place.
Smith said Trump should be perceived as innocent until he’s proven guilty, but added that no man is above the law.