As part of the legal process, former President Donald Trump's lawyers will be given access to classified information in the investigation into the former president's handling of classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
According to The Hill, President Joe Biden's Department of Justice filed a motion on Friday that aims to prevent Trump from publicly releasing any classified materials shared as part of the case.
The DOJ argued that some of the material is still part of the ongoing investigation and could lead to future charges against uncharged people.
The Justice Department spelled out its terms in the motion filed Friday.
"Defendants shall only have access to Discovery Materials under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff. Defendants shall not retain copies of Discovery Material."
It added: "Defendants may take notes regarding Discovery Materials, but such notes shall be stored securely by Defense Counsel."
Judge Bruce Reinhart, who previously signed off on the search warrant for the Mar-a-Lago raid conducted by the FBI last year, was given the motion for review.
BREAKING: DOJ Prosecutors panicking Request Court Intervention to Stop Donald Trump’s Release of Evidence to the Media.
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a motion on Friday to stop former President Donald Trump from publicly disclosing any evidence that has been shared with… pic.twitter.com/z0MOjLzodN— 1776 (@TheWakeninq) June 18, 2023
The motion to effectively silence Trump on the matter comes in the wake of a similar ruling issued in the New York indictment regarding alleged hush money payments. Trump was banned from sharing evidence on social media.
For his part, the former president unloaded on Special Counsel Jack Smith after his appearance in a Miami, Florida courtroom last week to surrender.
In a speech later that night, Trump described Smith as a “raging and uncontrolled Trump hater." He later vowed to "appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of America, Joe Biden, and go after the Biden crime family."
He added: "The ridiculous and baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration’s weaponized department of injustice will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country … this vicious persecution is a travesty of justice."
Trump has long argued that he's not guilty of any crimes related to the classified documents case or the hush money case, or future indictments including one expected to come out of Georgia later this year related to the 2020 election.
The former president, and a vast majority of his supporters, maintain that the indictments are last-ditch political witchhunts aimed at hurting his 2024 White House bid.
