JUST IN: Ex-US President Trump Under Arrest Ahead Of Arraignment On Criminal Charges

Eko Hot Blog reports that Former President of the United States (US), Donald Trump, has been arrested at the federal courthouse in Miami, Florida, and will soon be arraigned on charges related to mishandling classified documents.

According to CNN, deputy marshals have booked the former president and taken electronic copies of his fingerprints during Tuesday’s proceedings.

They were not expected to take a mugshot of Trump, given his recognisability, the American broadcaster reported.

His aide and co-defendant, Walt Nauta, has also been arrested, fingerprinted and processed.

The criminal charges in the Justice Department’s classified documents case escalates the legal jeopardy surrounding the 2024 Republican front-runner for president.

Tuesday’s hearing, at 3 p.m. ET (8 p.m. Nigerian time) in Miami, is expected to be procedural in nature. Trump will enter a plea, there will be a discussion of the conditions of his pretrial release, and it’s possible that potential restrictions around Trump’s conduct as the case moves forward are brought up.

Trump is facing 37 felony counts, alleging he illegally retained national defense information and that he concealed documents in violation of witness-tampering laws in the Justice Department’s probe into the materials.

His close aide, Nauta, was also charged in the indictment, unsealed Friday, which alleges the two men engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct the federal investigation. Nauta also will be appearing in court.

Trump left his Doral resort in his motorcade Tuesday along with Nauta, who was traveling in a separate vehicle. As he got in his vehicle, a bystander asked Trump how he was feeling. Trump said “great” and waved.

On his social media, Trump posted before heading to court that it was “ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!”

Before last week’s federal indictment, Trump also faced criminal charges brought by New York City’s local prosecutors for an alleged hush money scheme in the 2016 campaign in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records.

The new charges in the DOJ documents case are said to be more serious and present the possibility of several years in prison if Trump is ultimately convicted.

Source: CNN