Trump May Not See Evidence After Jack Smith Lawyers' Aileen Cannon Meeting

Federal prosecutors argued that some classified information should be withheld from former President Donald Trump during a closed-door meeting with Judge Aileen Cannon on Wednesday.

Cannon, a federal judge in Florida, is overseeing the trial concerning the Justice Department's allegations that Trump mishandled classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Trump's indictment in the case followed an investigation by DOJ special prosecutor Jack Smith.

Last year, the DOJ charged Trump with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation, a scheme to conceal and false statements and representations. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, as he has in his three other criminal cases.

DOJ attorneys met with Cannon on Wednesday. Few details about the closed-door session have been made public. But it is known that Cannon heard arguments from Smith's office related to Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) motions filed in December 2023, according to a paperless minute entry released by the court,

The CIPA is a statute that allows the government to argue for restricting classified evidence from a defendant to prevent the potential release of sensitive government information. This, according to the DOJ's website, "applies both when the government intends to use classified information in its case-in-chief as well as when the defendant seeks to use classified information in his/her defense."

During the ex parte meeting, the DOJ attorneys made their case as to why some classified materials should be restricted from Trump and his two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

The meeting lasted about three hours and was attended by four attorneys representing the DOJ: Jay Bratt, David Harbach, Julie Edelstein and J.P. Cooney. Neither Trump nor his attorneys were listed as being present. It is not known whether Smith attended the meeting.

An ex parte meeting is conducted without the parties affected by the proceeding and without a transcript. This means specific details of the conversations between the judge and the prosecutors will not be made public.

The nature of the classified evidence discussed during the meeting also is not known.

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign and the DOJ for comment via email.

The trial in the classified documents case is set to begin on May 20, but any appeal of the ruling by Judge Cannon could delay it.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance wrote in her newsletter Civil Discourse With Joyce Vance that "while we won't learn much if anything about what happens when the Special Counsel's team sits down with Judge Cannon," we will find out if the DOJ objects to anything in her ruling "fairly quickly, in the form of a notice of appeal to the 11th Circuit."