Donald Trump set to appear in Miami court on charges he stole classified documents

Donald Trump set to appear in Miami court on charges he stole classified documents

Donald Trump has spent the night at his golf club in Doral just outside Miami ahead of his historic federal court appearance.

The former president will appear at the Wilkie D. Ferguson CourtHouse at 3pm on charges he stole classified documents and lied to block efforts to get them back.

Trump touched down in his private plane on Monday afternoon.

A small group of supporters gathered outside the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort, cheering as his motorcade drove past.

Roughly 13,000 documents were seized in raids on the property nearly a year ago. One hundred of them were marked as classified.

Prosecutors say Trump’s hoarding of papers from his time as president jeopardized national security – and the Espionage Act charges carry the prospect of up to 20 years in jail.

Writing on his Truth Social site before boarding his flight, he said: “I hope the entire country is watching what the radical left are doing to America.”

He faces 37 felony counts over documents found at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home, as well as claims he obstructed justice and made false statements.

Pictures released by the Department of Justice as part of its unsealed indictment showed boxes of documents stacked inside his Mar-a-Lago estate, including in a bathroom.

Details on nuclear weapons programmes, potential vulnerabilities of the US and its allies, and plans for retaliatory military attacks were in some of the documents, according to prosecutors.