Former President Donald Trump will appear at a hearing Tuesday in a historic criminal case stemming from allegations that the real estate mogul withheld top secret government documents and tried to conceal them from investigators.

The 45th president – who turns 77 on Wednesday – is expected at Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. U.S. Courthouse in Miami around 3 p.m., where he will likely plead not guilty to 37 charges including willful retention of national defense information.

The case marks yet another turning point for Trump, who is currently a favorite candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

The allegations are also the first time the Justice Department brought charges before a former president. Speaking on the investigation last Friday, special counsel Jack Smith declared, “We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.”

Tuesday’s proceedings are the second time Trump has appeared in court in the first half of 2023: In April, he was arraigned in New York on charges arising from alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The Queens native is also subject to investigations in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta related to efforts to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, who arrived in Miami via his private jet on Monday afternoon, scheduled a speech and fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey for Tuesday night.

“They’re using this because they can’t win the election fairly and squarely,” he told Americano Media on Monday.

Meanwhile, Miami police are bracing for protests as between 5,000 to 50,000 Trump supporters are expected to descend on the city for the proceedings, the BBC reported.

Police chief Manuel A. Morales said authorities may block streets and divert traffic, depending on the crowd size.

About 50 banner-carrying supporters cheered when Trump’s motorcade arrived at the Trump National Doral resort on Monday.

Minutes before the auspicious arrival, police were forced to break up a near-brawl between a Trump zealot and a detractor wearing a suit that called the former president an obscenity.

After Trump appears before a federal magistrate on Tuesday, the case is assigned to Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed in 2020.

Last year, Cannon ruled in the former president’s favor in a dispute over whether an outside master could be selected to review the seized classified documents. Her decision was ultimately overturned by a federal appeals panel.

Two of Trump’s lead lawyers resigned the day after the indictment last week. Another attorney, M. Evan Corcoran, is cited throughout the charging document and may be called as a witness for the prosecution.

The 49-page indictment, which was unsealed on Friday, alleges that Trump knowingly hoarded hundreds of classified files from the White House at his Mar-a-Lago residence after leaving the White House in Jan. 2021.

Damning photographs show stacks of storage boxes containing material on nuclear programs and defense capabilities haphazardly arranged in a bathroom, ballroom, bedroom, and shower.

If exposed, the sensitive information could have risked military lives, confidential sources, and intelligence collection, prosecutors say.

Trump is charged alongside his personal aide, Walt Nauta, who is accused of helping the former president hide and destroy documents in order to conceal them from his own attorneys and the FBI.