Former President Donald Trump and his lawyers can only review classified evidence in a secure place as he prepares for a criminal trial.
Former President Donald Trump and his lawyers can only review classified evidence in a secure place as he prepares for a criminal trial over his alleged mishandling of documents after he left the White House in 2020, according to a judge’s ruling issued Wednesday.
The former president, also the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, was charged along with two aides with illegally storing troves of classified documents at his personal residence and lying to federal investigators who sought to retrieve them. Last year, the FBI carried out an unprecedented raid on his Mar-a-Lago, Florida, home before a special counsel was named to investigate.
In court papers, President Trump’s lawyers had opposed strict security protocols for the classified evidence as inconvenient, saying he and his attorneys should be able to review them in his office at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in Florida issued a protective order (pdf) Wednesday that it would be inappropriate for the former president to be able to review classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, which prosecutors have alleged was the location where he illegally stored such documents.
“The Court finds that this case will involve information that has been classified in the interest of national security. The storage, handling, and control of this information will require special security precautions mandated by statute, executive order, and regulation,” the judge, who was appointed by President Trump, wrote in her order.
And President Trump, she ruled: “may have a continuing contractual obligation to the government not to disclose to any unauthorized person classified information known to them or in their possession,” adding that federal prosecutors are also “entitled to enforce that agreement to maintain the confidentiality of classified information.”
What’s more, “No court personnel required by this Court for its assistance shall have access to classified information involved in this case unless that person shall first have received the necessary security clearance,” Judge Cannon added.
By Jack Phillips
