Trump prepares for court appearance as 1st ex-president to face federal criminal charges

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump arrived in Florida on Monday ahead of a history-making federal court appearance on dozens of felony charges accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and thwarting the Justice Department’s efforts to get them back.

Trump’s Tuesday afternoon appearance in Miami will mark his second time since April facing a judge on criminal charges. But unlike a New York case some legal analysts derided as relatively trivial, the Justice Department’s first prosecution of a former president concerns conduct that prosecutors say jeopardized national security, with Espionage Act charges carrying the prospect of a significant prison sentence.

Ahead of his court date, he and his allies have been escalating efforts to undermine the criminal case against him and drum up protests. He’s ratcheted up the rhetoric against the Justice Department special counsel who filed the case, calling Jack Smith “deranged” as he repeated without any evidence his claims that he was the target of a political persecution. And even as his supporters accuse the Justice Department of being weaponized against him, he vowed Monday to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate President Joe Biden and his family if Trump is elected to a second term.

Trump landed in Miami around 3 p.m. Monday and got into a waiting SUV. He was expected to huddle with advisers before his court appearance, as he looks to line up additional lawyers following the departure before his indictment last week of two attorneys who had handled the defense for months.

He’s encouraged supporters to join a planned protest at the Miami courthouse Tuesday, where he will face the charges and surrender to authorities.

“We need strength in our country now,” Trump said Sunday, speaking to longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone in an interview on WABC Radio. “And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully. They have to go out.”

“Look, our country has to protest. We have plenty to protest. We’ve lost everything,” he went on.

He also said there were no circumstances “whatsoever” under which he would leave the 2024 race, where he’s been dominating the Republican primary.

Other Trump supporters have rallied to his defense with similar language, including Kari Lake, the unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate in Arizona who pointedly said over the weekend that if prosecutors “want to get to President Trump,” they’re ”going to have to go through me, and 75 million Americans just like me. And most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA.”

Trump’s calls for protest echoed exhortations he made ahead of a New York court appearance in April, where he faces charges arising from hush money payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign, though he complained that those who showed up to protest then were “so far away that nobody knew about ’em.”