Here’s Why Trump Is Being Indicted In Florida

Topline

Former President Donald Trump is expected to surrender to authorities Tuesday in Miami after being indicted on federal charges stemming from him retaining White House documents at Mar-A-Lago, as the DOJ decided to bring charges against Trump in Florida rather than Washington, D.C.—a decision that could speed up the legal proceedings, but also be a friendlier venue for the ex-president.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at Mar-a-Lago on April 4 in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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Key Facts

Prosecutors decided to bring Trump’s case in the Southern District of Florida because much of the conduct at issue—Trump storing documents at his Mar-A-Lago club in Palm Beach and his various dealings with keeping them and turning them over to federal authorities—happened there, according to sources cited by the Washington Post.

A grand jury had initially been convened in Washington, D.C., to hear evidence in the documents case, so the longstanding assumption was that any charges would be brought there, but reports emerged this week that a second grand jury had been convened in Florida, ahead of Trump’s announcement Thursday he had been asked to surrender in Miami.

Bringing the charges immediately in Florida could help speed up the legal process, as if the case had initially been brought in D.C., it was broadly expected Trump and his lawyers would have tried to move the case to Florida, slowing down proceedings as the court ruled on that issue.

The Southern District of Florida is also known for moving cases to trial more quickly than other federal courts, former federal prosecutor Franklin Monsour told Bloomberg, saying, “If the prosecution team feels like it has a strong case and can move quickly, there’s no better place to charge a case than the southern district of Florida.”

One downside for the DOJ is that the court may also be friendlier to Trump: the ex-president appointed five of the 15 non-senior judges in that district, and according to multiple reports, the case will at least initially be overseen by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee who was widely criticized by legal experts for her—eventually overturned—opinion that sided with Trump and installed a third-party special master to go through documents the DOJ seized at Mar-A-Lago.

Trump also stands a better chance at getting a jury that’s more sympathetic to him, given he’s more popular in Florida than in D.C., and prosecutors cited by the Messenger noted jurors in Miami have historically been largely against charging government officials in past cases, though those were different circumstances than Trump’s case.

Big Number

43.2%. That’s the share of voters in Palm Beach County who voted for Trump in 2020, along with 46% of voters in Miami-Dade County—suggesting slightly less than half the jurors in Trump’s trial could be sympathetic to him, if the jury is representative of the area’s political demographics. In Washington, D.C., only 5.4% of the district’s voters backed Trump, making a jury there likely much less favorable to him.

What We Don’t Know

If more charges could still be brought in Washington, D.C., whether against Trump or any of his associates. It still hasn’t been ruled out that the DOJ could bring indictments there as well, though the Post reported prior to Trump’s indictment that a “significant portion” of the charges were expected to be brought in Florida. While most of the conduct in question took place in Florida, the documents were removed from the White House in D.C., which possibly could give some jurisdiction to the federal courts there, the Post notes, though it would be a harder case to make.

What To Watch For

Trump will appear in federal court in Florida on Tuesday, which is when he’ll be fingerprinted and plead not guilty to the charges against him. It’s still too soon to know what the timeline will be for the legal proceedings against him or when he’ll go to trial, which will have to work around his existing March 2024 trial date in New York, where he’s been indicted on state charges. The exact charges against Trump won’t be known until his indictment is unsealed, but his attorney James Trusty told CNN there are expected to be seven charges against Trump, including obstruction, making false statements and violations of the Espionage Act. That could result in prison time for Trump if he’s convicted, based on past precedent for similar Espionage Act violations, and the law carries a punishment of a fine or prison sentence of up to 10 years, while the obstruction statute is punishable by up to 20 years.

Key Background

Trump announced he was federally indicted Thursday night, becoming the first former president to be indicted on federal charges. The indictment followed a lengthy investigation by the DOJ into Trump bringing classified documents back to Mar-A-Lago with him, which began in February 2022 and was taken over by Special Counsel Jack Smith in November. Trump is being investigated over the more than 11,000 White House documents that federal agents have found at Mar-A-Lago, including 325 classified ones, as well as whether he obstructed the investigation after he was found to have not fully complied with a subpoena for the remaining classified documents in his possession. Trump has denounced the probe and denied the charges against him, saying on Truth Social on Thursday, “I AM AN INNOCENT MAN.”

Here’s Why Trump Is Being Indicted In Florida—And Why It Matters