As former President Donald J. Trump arrived in Florida on Monday for his first scheduled court appearance related to federal criminal charges stemming from his handling of classified documents, the authorities in Miami were bracing for the possibility of large crowds of pro-Trump demonstrators massing around the courthouse.
Mr. Trump headed to his Doral resort in Miami, where he and his legal team were conducting last-minute interviews with lawyers to represent him when he heads to the federal courthouse on Tuesday afternoon.
Mr. Trump has called for any demonstrations to be peaceful, but some of his backers have portrayed this indictment, in an investigation led by the special counsel Jack Smith, as an act of war and called for retribution.
The extraordinary event will be the former president’s second courtroom appearance as a criminal defendant, after his arraignment in April in a New York courthouse on state charges that he falsified business records in connection with a hush-money payment to a porn star just before the 2016 election.
After the hearing, Mr. Trump, who has railed against the new indictment, is expected to fly back to New Jersey. He has announced that he will deliver remarks at his golf club in Bedminster at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday.
Criminal defendants who are taken into custody before an initial federal court appearance are often handcuffed, fingerprinted and photographed for a mug shot. But it is not clear that Mr. Trump will be treated like a normal defendant. In April, authorities in New York only took Mr. Trump’s fingerprints and did not handcuff or photograph him. A person familiar with the planning for Mr. Trump’s appearance in Miami said the expectation was that there would be no handcuffs or mug shot.
Mr. Trump’s case has been assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who earlier handled a lawsuit he filed challenging the F.B.I.’s court-authorized search of his Florida estate and club, Mar-a-Lago. That search came in August, after Mr. Trump had not fully cooperated with a subpoena requiring him to give back all the documents with classification markings that he still had.
Judge Cannon was appointed by Mr. Trump days after he lost the election in November 2020. She surprised legal experts across the ideological divide last year by intervening with various rulings favorable to Mr. Trump, disrupting the documents investigation until a conservative appeals court rebuked her, saying she never had legal authority to intervene. Her assignment to the criminal case was random, the chief clerk for the Southern District of Florida has said.
But Tuesday’s hearing will be overseen by Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman, according to court papers released on Monday night. Magistrate judges handle many of the routine and procedural aspects of court cases.
“I am handling tomorrow’s first appearance and arraignment only because of my status as duty magistrate judge in the Miami division of this court,” Judge Goodman wrote in response to a request by news media outlets to take photos and recordings of the proceeding. “I am not the magistrate judge paired with United States District Judge Aileen M. Cannon, and it is highly unlikely that I will be asked to remain involved.”
At the hearing, Mr. Trump is likely to stand quietly next to his lawyer until the judge gives him permission to speak. It is also not yet clear whether Mr. Trump will return for an arraignment later or enter his expected plea of not guilty on Tuesday to eliminate a need to come back for that step.
As law enforcement agencies kept a close eye on far-right groups like the Proud Boys that have been supportive of Mr. Trump, Miami officials sought to project calm during a news conference on Monday. They said they were ready for Mr. Trump’s arrival as well as the expected crowds of his supporters and critics who may flock to the courthouse in downtown Miami.
“Make no mistake about it: We’re taking this event extremely serious,” said Chief Manuel Morales of the Miami Police Department.
Chief Morales said he was confident that Miami residents would demonstrate peacefully. But, he said, the police would be ready in case things turned chaotic.
“Even though we’re preparing — we’re bringing in enough resources to handle a crowd anywhere from 5,000 to 50,000 — we don’t expect any issues.”
Neither Chief Morales nor Mayor Francis X. Suarez offered specifics about their security plans.
“We obviously believe in the Constitution,” Mr. Suarez said. “We believe that people should have a right to express themselves, but we also believe in law and order.”
In the search of Mar-a-Lago, agents found 102 documents marked as classified. Mr. Smith has charged Mr. Trump with 37 counts of unauthorized retention of national security information based on 36 of those documents, along with one that agents found that had no markings and laid out certain “military contingency planning.”
The indictment also details an array of evidence in support of prosecutors’ accusations that Mr. Trump knew he still had classified documents; took steps with his co-defendant, Walt Nauta, to keep them from the government even after being subpoenaed; and caused one of his lawyers to unknowingly lie to the Justice Department about the matter.
Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
