Former President Donald Trump is attending a closed-door hearing in Florida related to the case over his alleged mishandling of classified documents, according to multiple news reports.
Monday’s hearings concern whether prosecutors can keep some of the classified material from the defendants as part of the discovery process, according to Forbes.
Trump and his team will likely first meet alone with US District Judge Aileen Cannon to discuss the case “in detail,” according to a court filing cited by CNN. Cannon will then hold a separate hearing only with special counsel Jack Smith’s team.
Trump’s co-defendants in the case, his aide Walt Nauta and a Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, won’t be able to attend the hearing as they lack security clearance to see the files in question, ABC News reported. Their lawyers, though, will be present at the proceeding.
The hearing is being held at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility in Fort Pierce, Florida, ABC added.
Last week, Smith urged Cannon to reconsider an earlier ruling that would allow the names of witnesses to be unsealed.
“That discovery material, if publicly docketed in unredacted form as the Court has ordered, would disclose the identities of numerous potential witnesses, along with the substance of the statements they made to the FBI or the grand jury, exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment, as has already happened to witnesses, law enforcement agents, judicial officers, and Department of Justice employees whose identities have been disclosed in cases in which defendant Trump is involved,” Smith wrote.
Another hearing has been set for early next month to determine whether the trial will still go ahead as planned in May.
Trump, Nauta and De Oliveira have denied wrongdoing in the case.