Secret Service will not seek ‘special accommodations’ for Trump’s Miami court appearance

The Secret Service will not seek “special accommodations” ahead of former President Donald Trump’s arraignment in a Miami federal courthouse on charges related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents, a spokesman for the agency said Friday.

“While operational security precludes us from going into specifics, the Secret Service will not seek any special accommodations outside of what would be required to ensure the former president’s continued safety,” Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement on Friday.

“As with any site visited by a protectee, the Secret Service is in constant coordination with the necessary entities to ensure protective requirements are met. We have the utmost confidence in the professionalism and commitment to security shared by our law enforcement partners in Florida,” he added 

Trump, 76, revealed Thursday that he has been summoned to appear before the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Tuesday at 3 p.m., where he intends to plead “not guilty” to all 37 charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s 49-page indictment against him. 

Unlike Trump’s Manhattan indictment in March, the US Secret Service and US Marshals did not get advance notice about the charges, leaving law enforcement “scrambling” to prepare for his Tuesday court appearance, CNN reported.

On Friday, an advance team of Secret Service agents began meeting with federal court marshals and Miami law enforcement officials to determine how to create a “security bubble around Trump,” according to the Washington Post. 

The outlet reports that Secret Service officials expect that Trump’s appearance at the Wilkie D. Ferguson Jr. Courthouse in Miami should be easier to orchestrate than his April arrangement in Manhattan due to lower amounts of pedestrian and vehicle traffic in Miami’s downtown compared to Lower Manhattan. 

Trump’s security detail is still working out the plan for how to transport him from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., to the courthouse some 70 miles to the south, according to the Washington Post, with some Secret Service officials raising concerns about driving him there and back in a secure motorcade.

Trump faces a maximum of 400 years in prison if convicted and given the stiffest penalties on all charges.