Trump Pleads Not Guilty to Classified Files Charges

Facts

The legal team for former US President Donald Trump on Tuesday entered a not guilty plea on 37 counts related to illegally retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and his alleged refusal to hand them over.¹
This comes as the 2024 Republican frontrunner made his first appearance at the federal courthouse in Miami, Fla., after being indicted last week on the 37 felony counts by Special Counsel Jack Smith.²
The first former US president ever to be charged by federal prosecutors, Trump entered the custody of the US Marshals Service and was arrested on Tuesday ahead of his historic court appearance.³
The hearing lasted some 45 minutes, with Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman ruling that Trump couldn't communicate with his aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta about the case. They were released with no financial or special conditions.⁴
The case will now enter a legal grind of pretrial proceedings, in which attorneys for Trump and prosecutors will attempt to strike agreements on evidence to be put before a jury and schedule a trial.⁵
This was the second time in three months that Trump stood before a judge as a defendant in a criminal case after appearing in a Manhattan courtroom in April to face 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He is scheduled to return to Manhattan Criminal Court on March 25, days after the start of voting in primary states.⁶

Anti-Trump narrative, as provided by Daily Beast. We may finally be witnessing Donald Trump being held accountable for his actions. While Trump's continual excuses sound like raving hysterics, the former president will soon realize that the rule of law also applies to him. It's extremely clear that Trump took classified documents and refused to return them — and opportunities for escape are becoming evermore scarce.
Pro-Trump narrative, as provided by Washington Examiner. The continued targeting of Trump over this is ridiculous, especially because there’s another special counsel currently investigating Biden’s possession of classified documents from when he was vice president. In fact, every president since Reagan has been found to possess classified documents, yet none of these other former officials are being attacked and investigated like Trump.