A judge handling the federal case against Donald Trump, for allegedly mishandling boxes of sensitive government materials, has slapped a new order on the former president and his legal team to keep key documents in the proceedings safe.
Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart released the order June 19 imposing restrictions on evidence produced against the president — referred to as “discovery” in legal terms. The order includes a form for Trump to sign that reads like something a schoolboy might have to write, repeatedly, on the classroom chalkboard, as punishment: “I will not further disclose or disseminate the Discovery Materials.”
Former president Trump is facing 37 felonies for carting off boxes of highly sensitive and classified materials from the White House to his Florida resort residence of Mar a Lago, and then playing a cat-and-mouse with federal authorities who sought the safe return of the materials.
Per Trump’s indictment, the documents included nuclear secrets and sensitive military plans. And Trump had a bad habit of allegedly showing off such state secrets to friends and underlings who lacked proper clearance to view them. That is, when he wasn’t leaving the unsecured docs in boxes on a ballroom stage at Mar a Lago, or in a chintzy bathroom at his Florida resort.
The new order seeks to ensure that no similarly sloppy handling of evidence will haunt the proceedings against the former president. Judge Reinhart’s new order applies specifically to “non-classified discovery” in the case, but it nonetheless establishes a high threshold of secrecy.
The order requires that discovery documents “must be maintained in the custody and control” of Trump’s legal team. As a defendant, Trump is permitted to review the evidence against him, of course. But the judge’s order makes plain that Trump “shall only have access” when he “under the direct supervision” of his legal team, and that any notes he takes must also “be stored securely by Defense Counsel” just like the evidence in the case.
The famously undisciplined former president, who now has his own media platform in Truth Social, is also barred from posting any details of his case online. “The Discovery Materials, along with any information derived therefrom, shall not be disclosed to the public or the news media, or disseminated on any news or social media platform,” the judge’s order reads.
If Trump fails to comply with the judge’s order, the document states, he could face “contempt of court or other civil or criminal sanctions.”
Worse for Trump — who is in this fix thanks to habitual “hoarder” tendencies — the former president is also barred from keeping any of the evidence against him as a souvenir after the trial is completed. The order requires that all discovery materials either be “destroyed by Defense Counsel or returned to the United States.”
Read the judge’s order, below:
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