Trump will attend hearing in classified documents case: reports

Former President Donald Trump is reportedly planning to attend a hearing in his classified documents case that will be held in a secure room in Florida on Monday.

The chairman of the St. Lucie County Republican Executive Committee, Kenny Nail, said he received a message from one of Trump’s lawyers saying that the ex-president will attend the hearing in person, according to WPBF.

Overseen by District Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee — the 9:30 a.m. hearing will be in a highly secure room known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, at the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida, ABC News reported.

The hearing will focus on a law that protects classified information from being disclosed in court.

Defense attorneys representing Trump and his two co-defendants — Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira — will present arguments on how classified information “might be relevant of helpful to the defense.”

Nauta, a Trump valet, and De Oliveira, the property manager of the ex-president’s estate in West Palm Beach, Fla., will not be in attendance because they do not have security clearance to hear classified information.

Special counsel Jack Smith will then present his arguments for keeping classified information secret.

Judge Cannon previously ruled that the Department of Justice must release unredacted documents in the case at the request of Trump and media organizations.

Smith filed a motion to the judge Thursday asking her to reconsider her order, arguing that filing the discovery material on a public docket without redaction would reveal the identities of potential witnesses, “exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassments.”

“These risks are far from speculative in this case,” Smith wrote in his filing. “Witnesses, agents, and judicial officers in this very case have been harassed and intimidated, and the further outing of additional witnesses will pose a similarly intolerable risk of turning their lives upside down.”

Trump, 77, was indicted in June for allegedly keeping hundreds of classified documents throughout his Mar-a-Lago property, including in a bathroom, and thwarting government efforts to retrieve them.

Nauta and De Oliveira are accused of helping their boss hide the documents.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges, claiming that they are politically motivated.

The case is scheduled to go to trial on May 20 but could be delayed.