Trump indictment live updates: Not guilty plea entered at arraignment over classified documents

President Donald Trump was feeling “defiant” as he was arraigned on 37 federal counts relating to classified documents he refused to return to the government after his time in office, said Trump lawyer Alina Habba.

Habba spoke to reporters outside the Miami courtroom where Trump and his valet Walt Nauta surrendered and were placed under arrest. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges, which arose from his refusal to return hundreds of classified documents he took with him when he left the White House.

“Countless other individuals, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden himself, retained possession of classified documents and yet have not been prosecuted,” Habba said, a familiar line among Trump supporters, which ignores the fact that both Clinton and Biden returned the records to the government immediately after learning of them.

Trump on the other hand allegedly spent more than a year obstructing efforts by the National Archives and Records Administration to secure the documents, a charge detailed in the meticulous 49-page indictment.

Habba claimed Trump’s indictment was the latest chapter in a nefarious plan.

“In recent years, we have seen the rise of politically motivated prosecutors who don’t care for impartiality, who don’t care for due process or equal protection of laws,” she said without evidence.

Habba accused the Justice Department of “quietly but aggressively cultivating a two-tiered system of justice,” where prosecutors investigating potential crimes by Trump are on one tier, and everyone else is on the other.

— Christina Wilkie

Trump has pleaded not guilty to a historic 37-count indictment charging him with improperly taking classified documents to his resort home Mar-a-Lago and then misleading the federal government when it sought to take the records back.

Trump, who is now the first ex-president to face federal criminal charges, sat expressionless in the courtroom during the proceedings, NBC News reported.

Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche entered the not guilty plea on the former president’s behalf, according to NBC.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump is inside the courtroom to face charges in the documents case, news outlets reported.

The federal magistrate judge overseeing the arraignment has barred any photos or videos from being taken in the courtroom or the outside corridor prior to the court proceedings.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump and his also-indicted aide Walt Nauta have completed the booking process in a Miami federal courthouse, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals told NBC News.

— Kevin Breuninger

Longtime Trump ally Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., said in an interview on Tuesday that he “would not feel comfortable with a convicted felon in the White House” as the former president surrendered at a Miami court to face federal criminal charges.

Buck referred to the former president’s own words during his presidential win in 2016, when he said Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton should not be in the White House because of her handling of her personal email server.

“Let’s look at Donald Trump’s words in 2016,” Buck told CNN. “He said that Hillary Clinton was unfit for the White House for the way she handled classified information… So I think his words have set the standard that America will look at in determining whether he is fit for the presidency.”

— Brian Schwartz

Former President Donald Trump’s co-defendant, his valet Waltine “Walt” Nauta, arrived at the Miami courthouse along with his boss.

Nauta is charged with six federal counts, far fewer than Trump’s 37 counts. The charges against Nauta are related to his alleged role in helping the former president hide classified documents from the FBI.

In addition to charges of concealing federal documents and obstructing justice, Nauta is also charged with lying to investigators about what Trump asked him to do with boxes of presidential documents.

— Christina Wilkie

Trump has arrived at the Miami federal courthouse for his unprecedented arraignment on federal criminal charges.

His motorcade’s trip from Trump National Doral Miami took approximately 25 minutes.

— Kevin Breuninger

Two Republican officials from Nevada were spotted entering the room in the Washington, D.C., federal courthouse where a grand jury is meeting as part of a special counsel probe into the events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, NBC News reported.

The federal criminal investigation into Trump is the second that the Justice Department had tapped Jack Smith to oversee as special counsel.

Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald and Republican National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid were both seen inside the district court building heading into the grand jury room Tuesday afternoon, NBC reported.

McDonald told NBC last year that he was interviewed by the House committee investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol after Trump spent months falsely insisting the 2020 election had been stolen from him.

Both men participated in a scheme to try to keep Trump in power by sending a false electoral certificate to Congress asserting that Trump won Nevada over the actual winner, President Joe Biden.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump has left his Miami-area golf resort and is heading to the federal courthouse for his arraignment on the 37-count indictment accusing him of taking highly classified documents and then obstructing the government’s efforts to retrieve them.

Trump’s motorcade departed Trump National Doral Miami just after 1:30 p.m. ET.

Just before his departure, Trump posted on Truth Social: “ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!”

— Kevin Breuninger

Former national security advisor John Bolton has a message for Republicans who think the prosecution of his one-time boss, former President Donald Trump, is politically motivated: “Read the indictment.”

“This is a very serious case. It’s not financial fraud, it’s not hush money to porn stars, this is the national security of the United States at stake, and I just urge everybody, read the indictment,” Bolton said on MSNBC shortly before Trump’s arraignment.

“You think there’s political bias inherent in this prosecution? Read the indictment and ask yourself, if this were a Democrat involved in this, would this not warrant prosecution?” Bolton said. “I think we’ve got to take the politics out of this when national security is at stake, and this is a good place to start.”

Bolton has criticized Trump in the past. But his firsthand knowledge of how Trump approached national security while in office made his observations especially compelling.

“Why did he keep the documents? Because he liked to say ‘I’ve got it and you don’t.’ Because he thought it would be cool,” Bolton said of Trump. “Because it just struck his fancy on any given day. Did he have more malign motives? Selling it to foreign governments? Using it for blackmail? It’s possible.”

“It wouldn’t be out of character, but I don’t think we know that,” said Bolton. “But any subordinate who did the same thing would already be in the slammer.”

— Christina Wilkie

Miami Police reopened a street near the federal courthouse after completing an investigation into a suspicious object discovered there hours earlier.

The city police were assisting authorities from the Homeland Security Department to respond to the object, which prompted the closure of a section of North Miami Ave.

“Thank you all for the patience,” the Miami PD tweeted.

— Kevin Breuninger

As Trump prepares to face what was likely to be a jury trial on charges that he illegally hung onto scores of classified government documents containing the nation’s most sensitive military secrets, he has repeatedly cited two legal notions that he claims are sufficient to “exonerate” him.

“The grand jury was never told about the Presidential Records Act or the Clinton socks case, both exonerating!” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, shortly before his arraignment.

With the caveat that these are Trump’s justifications in public, and they are not arguments made by lawyers in court, below is what Trump is talking about.

The Presidential Records Act

Trump has falsely claimed for several months that a provision of the 1978 Presidential Records Act requires the National Archives and Records Administration, the custodian of official government documents, to “negotiate” with former presidents about what official records they get to keep.

The law “says you talk, you negotiate, you make a deal,” Trump claimed in a CNN town hall last month.

In reality, the PRA was passed to codify precisely the opposite — that presidential records do not belong to the former president, they belong to NARA.

A key sentence in the law is unequivocal: “Upon the conclusion of a President’s term…the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.”

The ‘Clinton Socks Case’

Another notion Trump frequently raises is what he calls the “Clinton socks case.”

Here, a judge ruled in 2012 that conservative group Judicial Watch did not have the right to compel the National Archives to seize audio tapes of conversations held between historian Taylor Branch and former President Bill Clinton, who had been out of office for more than a decade.

The tapes were reportedly kept in a sock drawer at one point, and the name stuck.

But the two instances have almost nothing in common. In Clinton’s case, the judge ruled that the tapes were more akin to a diary or journal than a presidential record, and therefore were not “official” records under the Presidential Records Act.

The documents Trump refused to return to the National Archives, however, were inarguably official. They were classified documents generated by federal employees. Many of them were presidential daily intelligence briefings, and they were shared with the president in the course of his official duties.

It was unclear Tuesday whether Trump’s attorneys would raise either the PRA or the Clinton case during a trial, or whether they would be permitted to do so.

— Christina Wilkie

Things are getting weird outside the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. U.S. Federal Courthouse in Miami ahead of former President Trump’s arraignment. One protestor even brought a severed pig’s head on a pike. And, yes, that’s an American flag in the pig’s mouth.

It wasn’t immediately clear what point the demonstrator, Osmany Estrada, was trying to convey, although he reportedly identified himself as a critic of Trump’s.

– Mike Calia

Miami police and Homeland Security Department authorities responded to a “suspicious object” located near the federal courthouse where Trump is set to soon arrive, a spokesman for the city’s police department said.

“Traffic has been temporarily shut down” due to the discovery of the object near North Miami Avenue between Third and Fourth streets, the spokesman said in a statement.

Miami police responded around 10:28 a.m. ET, the spokesman noted.

“We have temporarily closed N. Miami Avenue at NW 5 Street to NW 3 Street,” the department added in a tweet.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump isn’t the only one who’s been indicted on federal charges. His aide, Walt Nauta, faces six charges in connection to the classified documents case, including withholding a document or record and conspiracy to obstruct.

The 40-year-old Naval veteran from Guam had daily contact with the former president in the Oval Office through setting up meals and organizing travel clothing, NBC News reported, according to a former senior Trump aide. Nauta was a senior chief culinary specialist in the Navy and was part of the Presidential Food Service in the White House, according to NBC News.

Nauta continued serving Trump after his presidency. Trump wrote on Truth Social last week that Nauta had at some point “retired as Senior Chief, and then transitioned into private life as a personal aide.”

Nauta received payments from Trump’s “Save America PAC” beginning in August 2021, and later appeared on the former president’s 2024 campaign payroll, NBC News reported, based on public election records.

Prosecutors allege Nauta was among those who packed items from the White House to be shipped to Florida. But Nauta denied knowledge of the boxes in false statements, they allege.

— Lauren Feiner

Trump’s Republican presidential competitor Vivek Ramaswamy showed up outside the Miami federal courthouse to issue a challenge to the rest of the primary field: Commit to pardon Trump if elected, or explain why you won’t.

“That document reeks of politicization,” Ramaswamy said of the 37-count federal indictment against Trump, while wearing a black T-shirt and white baseball cap emblazoned with the slogan “Truth.” in all caps.

Ramaswamy argued that the indictment is undermined by its “silence” on the Presidential Records Act and a 13-year-old judicial opinion in a case related to recordings of former President Bill Clinton.

Experts dispute that the ruling — in which Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that the Presidential Records Act gives the president authority on whether to turn over documents to the National Archives — is relevant in Trump’s case, which involves alleged violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction.

Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur whose media-friendly campaign has given him an outsize profile in the primary race, has previously vowed to pardon Trump if elected. In his remarks in Miami on Tuesday, he announced that his campaign sent letters to competitors in both the Republican and Democratic primary fields, asking them to either pledge to pardon Trump or explain their refusal to do so.

But Ramaswamy also noted, “As U.S. president, I would have made different judgements than Donald Trump made” regarding the retention of classified records.

Ramaswamy’s remarks were at times nearly overtaken by noise from the throngs of protesters and other onlookers stationed outside the courthouse. At one point he attempted to switch from a lectern microphone to a hand-held megaphone, but he quickly switched back after fumbling with the equipment for a few seconds.

— Kevin Breuninger

When former President Donald Trump surrenders to authorities at a federal courthouse on Tuesday, he will not be photographed for a traditional “mug shot” picture of his face, a law enforcement source told NBC News.

In place of a mug shot, a photo of the 2024 GOP presidential front-runner will be uploaded into the internal booking system, the source confirmed.

In addition to the photo, Trump’s handprint will be digitally scanned. He also will be required to provide his personal data to law enforcement, including his Social Security number, address and phone number.

These records, including the photo, will be for internal use only, and not released to the public. Cameras and recording equipment have been barred from the courtroom on Tuesday, so transcripts and sketches will likely be all that emerges from the proceedings.

— Christina Wilkie

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp called the federal charges brought against Trump a “distraction.”

In an interview with CBS News, he also did not rule out a late entry into the 2024 Republican primary for president.

Kemp, who was among Georgia’s Republican leaders who pushed back on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in his state, said the federal indictment brought against Trump brought “some serious concerns.”

Kemp said Republicans should focus on policy matters, such as those tied to inflation and crime, rather than Trump’s legal woes.

“That’s really what I believe Republicans need to stay focused on, and not get bogged down in the politics of this indictment,” he said. 

— Brian Schwartz

In a new filing Tuesday, Florida-based attorney Chris Kise informed the court that he would represent former President Donald Trump “for trial, all proceedings in the District Court, and on appeal.”

Kise’s filing came just hours before Trump is scheduled to be arraigned. Several prominent Florida lawyers reportedly turned down the job of defending Trump over the weekend.

Trump is a famously difficult legal client, often eschewing his attorneys’ advice. He also has a long record of fee disputes with his lawyers. That history makes one particular line in the new filing especially noteworthy.

Written in all caps, the contract states that, “Fee disputes between counsel and client shall not be a basis for withdrawal from this representation.”

— Christina Wilkie

Photos show increased security around the federal courthouse in Miami where Trump will surrender. He is expected to be arraigned at 3 p.m. ET in what are the first-ever federal charges filed against a former or current U.S. president.

Authorities have ramped up the police presence around the Miami courthouse where Trump is set to be arraigned this afternoon.

The Miami Police Department said it is shutting down multiple streets in the city’s downtown starting at 10 a.m. ET in advance of the former president’s visit.

“We strongly encourage commuters to avoid the area and seek alternate routes, if possible,” the department said in a traffic advisory, which warned that delays should be expected.

The statement added that police are working with local, state and federal authorities to provide necessary assistance, including personnel and other resources, to secure the arraignment.

Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman also pointed to potential security concerns in his ruling barring photo or video recording in the courtroom before the arraignment.

“Allowing photographs would undermine the massive security arrangements put in place,” Goodman wrote.

A clerk for the Miami courthouse did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the building’s security efforts.

The Miami-Dade County Police Department told CNBC on Tuesday morning that it “has not received any federal requests for security support,” but will nevertheless “provide any assistance, support, or resources” to the law enforcement effort.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump will be accompanied by Florida-based lawyer Chris Kise at the former president’s expected arraignment, according to sources familiar with the plans. The development appears to resolve a key outstanding issue around the court proceedings Tuesday at what will be the start of the first ever trial of a former U.S. president on federal criminal charges.

Trump’s two lead lawyers on the case both resigned abruptly on Friday, one day after the government informed them that their client would be charged with 31 counts of willfully retaining a national security document and six other counts of related to alleged efforts to withhold documents, make false statements or obstruct justice.

The attorneys’ departure left the former president scrambling over the weekend to find a lawyer who was approved to argue cases in the Southern District of Florida, where the charges were brought. Without a Florida-based attorney to file motions in the case, there were concerns that Trump’s arraignment might be delayed.

Kise, a former solicitor general of Florida, has been part of Trump’s larger legal team since 2022. But shortly after joining Trump’s team, he was reportedly sidelined from the classified documents case.

Trump is also being represented by New York-based attorney Todd Blanche, who traveled to Florida on Monday with the former president. It was unclear Tuesday morning whether Kise, Blanche, or both men would accompany Trump into court.

— Christina Wilkie

The judge assigned to the former president’s federal criminal case is a Trump appointee who stirred controversy over her involvement in a prior matter related to the classified documents scandal.

Judge Aileen Cannon last year temporarily blocked the Justice Department from reviewing the documents seized in the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago and granted Trump’s request to have a special master examine the records.

Some legal experts balked at Cannon’s rulings in that case. A federal appeals court overturned her order to appoint a special master, ending the review.

The New York Times reported that Cannon was assigned Trump’s criminal case randomly, as is the usual process. But Cannon has already faced calls to recuse herself.

— Kevin Breuninger

The federal magistrate judge overseeing Trump’s arraignment has barred any photos or videos from being taken in the courtroom or the outside corridor prior to the former president’s appearance.

A coalition of more than a dozen local and national media outlets, including NBCUniversal, had asked Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman on Monday to permit “a limited number of photographs and videorecordings” before the arraignment.

They also asked the court to immediately release audio recordings of the proceedings to the public. “This is a case of exceptional public interest to the entire country and beyond,” the coalition wrote in a court filing.

In an order Monday night, Goodman denied both requests.

“The Press Coalition argues that tomorrow’s first appearance and arraignment are ‘special proceedings,’ but the Undersigned is not convinced,” Goodman ruled.

“I follow the ‘stay in your lane’ philosophy,” Goodman wrote, noting that his involvement with the case will likely end after the arraignment, when it is handed off to Judge Aileen Cannon.

“I do not feel it is appropriate for me to rule on what happens in future proceedings when I am not the district court judge and when I will have no involvement whatsoever,” he wrote.

Goodman also cited court rules that broadly prohibit “all forms” of recording in the district court.

— Kevin Breuninger

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of NBC and CNBC.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of former President Trump is packed with detail and evidence, but there’s probably more. A lot more, according to Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor who’s taking on Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

“What I can tell you, for sure, I know about that indictment, is there’s probably about a third of the evidence they actually have is in that indictment,” the former New Jersey governor and one-time Trump ally said during a CNN town hall Monday night. “When you’re a prosecutor, you never put every card on the table before the trial.”

Christie, a longshot for the nomination, has nonetheless decided to run so he can directly attack Trump and help keep him from running against President Biden in next year’s general election. Early polls show that Trump is the clear leader in the primary field.

– Mike Calia

Trump is planning to head to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, for a presidential fundraiser after his arraignment in a Miami courtroom on federal charges that he kept reams of classified documents.

Trump will be return to his golf course later on Tuesday for a 2024 campaign fundraiser that calls on donors to to raise or give $100,000 for the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee. That amount allows contributors to have a “private candlelight dinner” with the former president and to join a VIP reception with “elected officials & special guests,” according to an invite to the event.

Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks from his property just after 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday.

— Brian Schwartz

A federal grand jury has returned an unprecedented indictment against a singular, and singularly positioned, politician leading an unusual presidential primary race.

So the way the case plays out on the campaign trail is anyone’s guess.

It may be natural to assume, for instance, that being accused of crimes would damage a candidate’s political standing. But bear in mind that Trump has already been indicted by prosecutors in Manhattan since entering the 2024 Republican primary race, and those charges — 34 counts of falsifying business records — do not appear to have diminished his overall lead in the polls.

Since the latest indictment, many of Trump’s Republican allies have issued statements defending him, or at least criticizing the Justice Department’s actions. Republicans have lobbed a common suggestion that the agency under the Biden administration has become politicized or “weaponized.” Even some of Trump’s primary opponents have joined in that chorus.

Some recent polling after the indictment has yielded polarizing results. An ABC News/Ipsos survey conducted Friday and Saturday found almost half of Americans believe Trump should have been indicted — but nearly the same percentage said they think the charges against him are politically motivated.

Trump, meanwhile, has vowed to stay in the race even if he is convicted. And he is reportedly set to host a campaign fundraiser just hours after his indictment.

— Kevin Breuninger

Trump kept a trove of classified documents from several federal agencies at his expansive Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, according to an indictment unsealed on Friday.

Federal prosecutors allege in a 49-page indictment that Trump had documents with details on “defense and weapons capabilities of both the United States and foreign countries; United States nuclear programs; potential vulnerabilities of the United States and its allies to military attack; and plans for possible retaliation in response to a foreign attack.”

Prosecutors added that Trump’s alleged unauthorized disclosure of the classified documents “could put at risk the national security of the United States, foreign relations, the safety of the United States military, and human sources and the continued viability of sensitive intelligence collection methods.”

The indictment does not reveal further details of what the documents contain beyond general descriptions, given their classified nature.

The documents found in Trump’s possession contained intelligence assessments from the Pentagon, National Reconnaissance Office, CIA, NSA and the Department of Energy, which oversees America’s nuclear weapons arsenal, according to the indictment.

The 37-count criminal indictment adds that Trump kept the classified documents in his bedroom, bathroom, ballroom, office and storage room, all while hosting more than 150 social events “that drew tens of thousands of guests” to the property.

During an FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August, 102 documents with classification markings were seized from Trump’s office and storage room. Of those, 17 were denoted as “top secret,” the highest intelligence classification level. Another 54 documents were labeled as “secret,” according to a tally included in the indictment.

— Amanda Macias

The historic first federal indictment of a former president charges Trump with seven different crimes spanning 37 counts.

Trump is accused of unlawfully taking dozens of documents related to U.S. national defense and storing them at his Palm Beach, Florida, residence and private club, Mar-a-Lago. Many of those documents bore “TOP SECRET” or other classification markings. At least two of them reference nuclear information, according to the indictment.

Thirty-one of the counts against Trump fall under this charge, known as the Espionage Act, which carries a maximum prison term of 10 years, according to prosecutors.

Trump is also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, concealing documents and making false statements. The charges of obstruction and concealing and withholding documents all bear 20-year maximum prison sentences, while the charges of scheming to conceal and making false statements carry 5-year prison maximums, according to the indictment.

Here are all the charges Trump — and his aide Walt Nauta, who is also charged in the indictment — face in the special counsel’s case:

• Willful retention of national defense information: 31 counts against Trump
• Conspiracy to obstruct justice: 1 count against Trump and Nauta
• Withholding a document or record: 1 count against Trump and Nauta
• Corruptly concealing a document or record: 1 count against Trump and Nauta
• Concealing a document in a federal investigation: 1 count against Trump and Nauta
• Scheme to conceal: 1 count against Trump and Nauta
• False statements and representations: 1 count against Trump
• False statements and representations: 1 count against Nauta

— Kevin Breuninger