U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ordered a sealed hearing on a request for a protective order under the Classified Information Protection Act (CIPA) in a case the DOJ brought in Florida against former President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon canceled a scheduled Aug. 25 hearing and ordered a sealed hearing on a request for a protective order under the Classified Information Protection Act (CIPA) in a case the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought in Florida against former President Donald Trump, his aide Waltine Nauta, and his Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos De Oliveira, for allegedly mishandling classified documents. All three have pleaded not guilty.
The hearing “will take place at a designated time and place to discuss sensitive, security-related issues concerning classified discovery,” she wrote in the Aug. 17
order.
She ordered that any motion for a protective order to Mr. de Oliveira needs to be filed by Aug. 22 for consideration during the sealed hearing, at which defendants aren’t required to appear.
Classified Information
Last month, special counsel Jack Smith requested a
protective order to restrict the information President Trump’s defense lawyers are able to share with him and his co-defendants.
“This case involves classified information,” the July filing reads. “When classified information is involved, protective orders are to be issued whenever the government discloses classified information to a defendant in connection with a prosecution.”
President Trump opposed any order that would prevent discussing the case with his legal team and asked for the approval of a secure location to do so.
He has asked for a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) to be
restored at his Mar-a-Lago resort so that he and his legal team can discuss the classified information in the case regularly. There was previously one established, his lawyers said in an August filing, noting that the secure location has 24-hour security protection and that they would use the space to discuss but not review classified information.
Mr. Smith’s team argued against the motion, calling it “extraordinary” and claiming that President Trump was
seeking “special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive and that is unsupported by law or precedent.”
President Trump’s team refuted the characterization that their request was “based on ‘inconvenience.’” Given the security protocol for his travel, the “hurdles and costs” would make it “virtually impossible” for the legal team to discuss the case with their client otherwise, they said.
Case Updates
In June, President Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 counts. The historic indictment, alleging that President Trump unlawfully retained 31 government documents, including some classified as top secret, was his second this year, coming after the New York indictment in April. The indictment also alleges that President Trump showed classified documents to others twice in 2021, a potential violation of the federal Espionage Act. The most serious charges carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.In late July, three more felony charges of conspiring to delete evidence and another defendant were added, to which both President Trump and Mr. De Oliveira entered a
plea of not guilty.
Judge Cannon has set a May 2024 trial date for the case,
delaying the original December date she set after requests were made to push it back.
President Trump’s team originally wanted to move the case until after the 2024 presidential elections, where he’s the Republican front-runner against the incumbent president, and the judge appeared to strike a middle ground between the candidate and the DOJ’s requests.
Judge Cannon noted that at least 1.1 million pages of nonclassified discovery had already been produced, along with nine months of security footage, and that 1,545 pages of classified documents were still to be produced.
“By conservative estimates, the amount of discovery in this case is voluminous and likely to increase in the normal course as trial approaches,” she
said. “And, while the Government has taken steps to organize and filter the extensive discovery, no one disagrees that Defendants need adequate time to review and evaluate it on their own accord.”
Scheduling
President Trump is currently facing several other legal cases, including a January trial, also prosecuted by Mr. Smith, in Washington over alleged conspiracy in the 2020 elections and a March trial over allegedly mishandling business finances in New York.
On Aug. 16, two days after an indictment, Georgia’s Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, proposed a March 4, 2024, trial date,
writing in a court filing that the proposed dates should avoid any conflict with President Trump’s other ongoing cases.
The start date falls on the day before the Republican presidential candidate is set to compete in the “Super Tuesday” primary contests across several states, which his
supporters have used to amplify his
claims of “election interference” from his political opponents.
“Remember, all of these Indictments, Federal, State, and Local, were conceived and generated by Crooked Joe Biden and his staff of Radical Left Lunatics and Thugs for purposes of interfering with the 2020 Presidential Election. None of these trials should be allowed to begin prior to the Election. Republicans must get tougher and smarter, FAST!” President Trump
wrote on Truth Social on Aug. 17, echoing his frequent claims that these cases would have otherwise been brought against him in 2021.
Mr. Smith was appointed special counsel in November 2022, three days after President Trump announced his campaign for reelection.
