Former U.S. President Trump Pleads Not Guilty In Mishandling Secrets
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
MIAMI, USA (Worthy News)— Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump denied on Tuesday that he unlawfully kept top secret documents after leaving office and lied to officials who sought to recover them.
Wearing a blue suit and a red tie, Trump pleaded “not guilty” before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman in a federal court in Miami.
He later visited a Cuban restaurant in Miami where the former president told a crowd of admirers: “It’s a rigged deal.”
However, the legal battle would likely play out over the coming months as he campaigns to win back the presidency in a November 2024 election. Experts say it could be a year or more before a trial occurs.
It’s alleged that U.S. government secrets were stored in a shower, bathroom, ballroom, and bedroom of his Mar-a-Lago estate.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, the lead investigator, says he wants a speedy trial and that Trump is innocent until proven guilty.
The court wrangling was the latest in a series of legal battles faced by Trump, who also learned Tuesday that E Jean Carroll, the writer who won a $5 million jury verdict against him last month, can pursue a separate defamation lawsuit.
WRITER SUES
The writer and former Elle magazine columnist sought to amend her original defamation lawsuit filed in 2019 to pursue additional punitive damages after Trump repeated statements a federal jury found to be defamatory.
A New York jury last month found Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll in a New York department store in 1996.
The jury concluded that he “sexually abused” Carroll, defined as subjecting her to sexual contact without consent by use of force and for sexual gratification.
But the jury did not find that Trump raped her. Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $2 million for battery and $3 million for defamation.
Carroll then sought to amend her separate defamation lawsuit over a similar denial by Trump in June when he told a White House reporter that the rape never happened. He added that Carroll was not his “type.”
The revision also sought to incorporate Trump’s comments made in a Cable News Network (CNN) town hall, where he called Carroll’s account “fake” and labeled her a “whack job.”
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