In a video posted on social media on Monday, one fan who had gathered outside his Trump National Doral Resort warned: “There are a lot of boys like me that are ready. We are ready. All we need is an order.”
Earlier, Trump’s son’s fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle posted a photo of the former president with the words, “Retribution Is Coming,” in all capital letters, while Arizona Republican Andy Biggs warned: “Eye for an Eye.”
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.Credit: AP
And TV anchor turned right-wing firebrand Kari Lake announced on Monday that she would speak at a rally at Palm Beach in Florida ahead of Tuesday’s arraignment, two days after warning that “to get to President Trump, you are going to have go through me, and you are going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me - and I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA (National Rifle Association).”
Trump has been criminally charged with 37 counts alleging that he “willfully” kept classified documents he wasn’t authorised to have after leaving the White House, and then schemed to thwart the federal government’s efforts to retrieve them.
The documents included some of the country’s most sensitive secrets, from information relating to nuclear programs and military vulnerabilities, to intelligence that should have only been shared with the “Five Eyes” countries, including Australia.
Many of the documents were also carelessly stored in boxes all over his Mar-a-Lago resort, the 49-page indictment alleges, including “in a ballroom, a bathroom and shower, an office space, his bedroom, and a storage room”.
Trump is expected to plead not guilty to the charges and has vowed to continue campaigning for the nomination to run as the Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election. On Monday, he left his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey and returned to Florida, arriving at his Trump National Doral Resort shortly before 4pm.
He was accompanied by a large entourage that included his personal aid Walt Nauta, who was also charged for his role as a co-conspirator for helping to move boxes in a bid to hide them from investigators.
After his court appearance, he will return to New Jersey, where he will publicly respond to the charges in a speech and also hold a private fundraiser.
The charges cap off an explosive investigation that began last August when the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property searching for sensitive material that he had taken from the White House. Soon after, a gunman died in a shootout after trying to get inside the FBI’s Cincinnati office. He had earlier been on Trump’s Truth Social platform, issuing a “call to arms” and urging people to “be ready for combat” after the raid.
Demonstrators rally outside the Trump National Doral resort.Credit: AP
The latest indictment marks Trump’s second appearance as a criminal defendant and comes only two months after he was arraigned in New York for falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels.
However, unlike the state-based New York indictment, which some legal experts derided as a weak case and relatively trivial, prosecutors say the federal indictment goes to the heart of national security, which could have been placed at risk had any of the material fallen into the wrong hands.
His own former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News Sunday: “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast. I mean, it’s a very detailed indictment, and it’s very, very damning.”
With 17 months until the next election, Trump is currently the frontrunner to win his party’s nomination and so far, most Republicans have stood by him, furious by what they see as the “weaponisation” of the Justice Department and FBI under Joe Biden.
In addition to the latest documents case, Trump is also facing two separate probes: one into election interference in Georgia and another into his role in the Capitol attack. Last month, a civil jury also found Trump had sexually abused and defamed New York author E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $US5 million ($7.4 million) in damages.
Biden is also under investigation by a Special Counsel over his own handling of classified documents, some of which were found in the garage of the president’s Delaware home - something that Speaker Kevin McCarthy cited to justify Trump’s actions on Monday.
Asked by reporters if it was “a good look” for Trump to be caught storing classified documents in the bathroom of Mar-a-Lago’s Lake Room, McCarthy responded: “I don’t know — is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks.”
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