Trump pleads not guilty from afar to second round of charges in classified documents case

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Former President Donald Trump removed the need to fly to Florida next week when he pleaded not guilty Friday in a paper filing to three new charges brought against him in a superseding indictment related to his handling of classified documents after he left office.

In doing so, he waived a court appearance in Fort Pierce, Florida, that was scheduled for Aug. 10 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Mills Maynard.

Trump, 77, personally appeared in a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to plead not guilty to a third federal indictment brought against him by prosecutors. The long-awaited indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, whose office also brought the documents case, alleges the former president orchestrated an illegal attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Joe Biden.

Following that plea, Trump boarded his private jetliner and flew back to New Jersey, where he is spending the summer.

The not-guilty plea entered in the South Florida federal court in the classified documents case and posted to the case docket on Friday took the form of a one-page filing titled, “Waiver of Appearance for Arraignment.”

“I have received a copy of the Indictment and the plea ls NOT GUILTY to the charged offense(s),” the filing reads. “I am aware that I have the right under Rule 10 of the Federal Rues of Criminal Procedure to be present In court for my arraignment. I waive my right to appear in court at my arraignment.”

The document was signed and dated Friday by Trump and by his Florida-based attorney, Christopher Kise.

The new charges against Trump involve an attempt to delete Mar-a-Lago security footage sought by a grand jury subpoena, making false statements to the FBI, and the unlawful retention of a document containing national defense information.

Trump pleaded not guilty in a Miami courtroom on June 12 to dozens of felony counts in the first indictment that accuses him of hoarding classified documents and refusing government demands to return them.

Trump’s paper plea on Friday leaves co-defendants Waltine Nauta, 40, an aide to Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, 56, the property manager at the former President’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, as the others who still need to be arraigned on charges brought in the superseding indictment.

De Oliveira apparently still needs to retain a Florida lawyer who is authorized to represent him in the Southern District of Florida. No notice of a hiring has appeared in the court file since De Oliveira made his initial appearance in Miami this past Monday.

The Fort Pierce magistrate is likely to expect De Oliveira to have a local attorney at his side at the hearing next Thursday.

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