Donald Trump moved swiftly from defendant to campaigner after pleading not guilty to charges in a Miami courtroom yesterday.

The prospective Republican candidate became the first former US president to face a judge on federal charges as he denied 37 counts of hoarding classified documents and refusing government demands to return them.

Having posted social media and public broadsides against the prosecution which he claimed is being pursued for political purposes, Mr Trump sat silently in court with his arms crossed.

A lawyer entered the not guilty plea on his behalf with Mr Trump – who also faces charges in New York over hush money payments and further investigations in Washington and Atlanta – not having to surrender his passport nor having any restrictions imposed on his travel.

The court appearance is the first step in a legal process which will unfold during the 2024 presidential race, and the former president headed back into campaign mode as he visited Cuban restaurant Versailles where supporters sang Happy Birthday, a day before his 77th birthday.

He repeated his claims of the investigation being politically motivated, calling prosecutors “thugs” when he returned to his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, telling supporters that if he wins a second term as president he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate president Joe Biden and his family.

The former president, who has routinely used his platforms to project allegations he faces toward his political enemies, lambasted the federal case against him as “the most evil and heinous abuse of power” under president Joe Biden, who Mr Trump falsely suggested was responsible for charging him.

“This day will go down in infamy and Joe Biden will forever be remembered as not only the most corrupt president in the history of our country but perhaps, even more importantly, the president who together with a band of his closest thugs, misfits and Marxists tried to destroy American democracy,” Mr Trump said from his golf club in Bedminster on 13 June.

Judging from the turnout, most of his supporters didn’t seem to be listening.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Miami.

Former president Donald Trump has finally addressed the reason he allegedly failed to return boxes of classified documents to the federal government: he’d put his clothes in them.

“Many people have asked me why I had these boxes, why did you want them?” Mr Trump said to supporters at his golf club in Bedminster yesterday evening. “The answer, in addition to having every right under the Presidential Records Act, is that these boxes were containing all types of personal belongings — many, many things, shirts and shoes, everything.”

Earlier in the day, Mr Trump was arraigned on 37 felony counts relating to his handling classified documents after leaving the presidency in 2021.

Former president Donald Trump’s federal arraignment in Miami yesterday was historic — yet virtually invisible to the public.

In an era when people are accustomed to instantly available images and sounds of important events, Mr Trump’s not-guilty plea to charges of hoarding classified documents was a step back in time. Hundreds of photographers and television crews were at the courthouse — many broadcasting live from outside — but they couldn’t show the key moments inside the courtroom.

Efforts by news organizations to loosen restrictions that generally prohibit cameras in federal courtrooms failed, despite the event’s unprecedented nature. It was a stark contrast from Mr Trump’s arraignment in New York earlier this year.

He eventually found a way Tuesday to fill the void after leaving the courthouse — with a stop at a Cuban restaurant, where he could bathe in the cheers of supporters.“This is the visual he wants — I just left the court. I’m good,” said CNN’s John King.

Earlier, he arrived at the courthouse to be booked and enter his plea and then left without being seen. Cameras followed a motorcade of black vehicles with tinted windows.

“This is a little bit old-fashioned,” said Fox News Channel’s Mark Meredith. “We’re not going to be able to see what’s going on in the courtroom.”News organizations had petitioned the court to allow photographs of Mr Trump to be taken prior to his arraignment, and permit the public release of an audio recording of the court proceeding after it was done. Yet on Monday night, US magistrate judge Jonathan Goodman denied the requests.

Also Monday, chief US district judge Cecilia Altonaga ordered that no journalists could possess electronic equipment anywhere in the courthouse on the day of the arraignment. Prior to her order, credentialed journalists at the courthouse had been allowed to use cell phones and computers.

“It’s kind a black hole inside the building,” said David Reiter, executive producer of special events for CBS News.

Most reporters in the courthouse were confined to an overflow room, where they watched the proceedings on “the kind of televisions you get in low-cost hotel rooms,” CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane said.

Special Counsel Jack Smith reportedly stared down former President Donald Trump throughout the entirety of Mr Trump’s arraignment in Miami on Tuesday.

Donald Trump was accompanied by two of his attorneys yesterday when he appeared in a Miami courtroom and pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges. But his defense team is still evolving after at least three key members left in recent weeks.

Attorneys Todd Blanche and Chris Kise appeared with the former president during his arraignment, days after two other lawyers who had been helping Mr Trump’s defence – Jim Trusty and John Rowley – resigned in the wake of his indictment. Both Mr Blanche and Mr Kise indicated at the hearing that they would remain on the case permanently.

Mr Trump has also sought to add a Florida-based criminal defence lawyer to his team in the days since his indictment, according to sources familiar with the conversations. No one has been publicly named.

Lindsey Halligan, a Florida attorney who has primarily handed insurance matters, has also been involved in the case as an attorney for Mr Trump. She did not appear in court yesterday.

Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he unlawfully kept national security documents when he left office and lied to officials who sought to recover them. He was charged last week.

Tucker Carlson, the fired Fox News host who now broadcasts on Twitter, hit out at aides to former president Donald Trump who he claims prayed on his susceptibility to flattery to gain power and subvert his political agenda.

Carlson’s rant against the likes of former vice president Mike Pence, former secretary to the United Nations Nikki Haley, and former secretary of state Mike Pompeo came on the day Mr Trump was arraigned on 37 felony counts for mishandling classified documents after the conclusion of his presidency and impeding government efforts to get them back.

“The stealthier ones took another path: they ran towards Trump, not away from him,” Carlson said in his social media monologue.

“They sucked up to him. They ingratiated themselves to a man they intuitively understood was susceptible to flattery, which Trump is, and they did this to subvert Trump’s administration from the inside.”

Chaos erupted in Miami after a protester jumped in front of former President Donald Trump’s motorcade as he left the federal courthouse after pleading not guilty to the 37 counts against him in connection to his alleged mishandling of national defence information.

In an interview with The Independent, before the incident took place, the protester identified himself as Domenic Santana.

Andrew Feinberg reports from Miami.

Former President Donald Trump gave a wave and a thumbs-up to crowds outside the federal courthouse in downtown Miami after pleading not guilty to criminal charges. He then headed to a Cuban restaurant where he warmly greeted waiting supporters in a camera-ready scene that resembled a campaign stop, and later he railed against the charges before a friendly crowd of invited guests at a private golf club he owns.

In the largely unseen moments Tuesday — his attorney entering his plea, Mr Trump sitting grim-faced with arms folded across his chest — the gravity of being the first former president charged with a federal crime was apparent.

In the seen moments, broadcast around the world in real time, there were a long motorcade, flag-waving supporters and a smaller number of anti-Trump protesters outside the courthouse. Then the former president and 2024 candidate had a detour in mind, to a popular restaurant where he was all smiles, greeted by supporters, prayed over by a rabbi and shadowed by his personal aide, who also has been charged in the case.

Then he flew on his private jet to New Jersey, where backers welcomed him with rally-like enthusiasm, music and chants for a speech delivered before a clubhouse with columns resembling the White House.

Mr Trump has long been adroit at creating his own portrait of events, ever mindful of the power of television to shape an impression even as his actions have strained the safeguards of American democracy. The post-court itinerary was an orchestrated effort at counterprogramming as he campaigns again for president and maintains that he has been unfairly targeted by political rivals.
The international attention and the screaming crowds were more signs of the extraordinary nature of the day’s events and the person at the center of it all.

A defendant like no other, Mr Trump was the first former president to appear before a federal judge on criminal charges. He also is leading the Republican field for the 2024 presidential nomination, holding his status as frontrunner even as he has faced these and other legal trouble.

Hardly any of those gathered in Miami interacted with Mr Trump, if they saw him at all through the window of his SUV. He arrived as part of a motorcade that entered the courthouse garage for his hearing on felony charges. The former president also left in the SUV with the windows rolled up before heading to Versailles, a restaurant, coffee shop and bakery that is a required stop for politicians visiting Miami.

There, the crowd serenaded him with the “Happy Birthday” song, one day before the former president’s 77th birthday.“Some birthday! We’ve got a government that’s out of control,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump has been making frequent stops at local restaurants during his campaign trips, in part to contrast his easy rapport with his supporters with his chief Republican rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Tuesday’s stop was different, aimed at showcasing Mr Trump’s continued support from GOP voters and signaling that he remains unbowed by the indictments.