Trump's lawyers fight to view classified evidence

Former President Trump is fighting to be allowed to view classified evidence in the Mar-a-Lago trial outside of a secure setting, challenging standard protocol in a case where he is accused of mishandling such records, The Hill reported.

Prosecutors described difficulties in obtaining an order defining guidelines for how the defendants and their attorneys will handle classified material in the case in a late Thursday filing.

According to The Hill, they claimed that Trump's insistence on reviewing the case's classified material outside of a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), where such reviews of the highly classified documents in question would ordinarily take place, has been a sticking point.

The filing follows a request from Judge Aileen Cannon for a second meeting between the parties to work out a deal regarding how to handle secret evidence in the case.

Notably, Federal District Judge Aileen Cannon, who has been assigned Trump's case was appointed by him.

When Cannon managed court procedures connected to the FBI's investigation of Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, she came into the public eye last year.

In the classified documents case, the US Special Counsel Jack Smith added new charges against former President Donald Trump on Friday, according to CNN.

Trump is facing accusations that he and his aides asked a staffer to delete camera footage at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago resort, in the summer of 2022 in an effort to obstruct the classified documents investigations.

He has been charged with three new counts, including one additional count of willful retention of national defence information and two additional obstruction counts.

Smith also filed new charges against Trump aide Walt Nauta and added a new defendant, Mar-a-Lago maintenance employee Carlos De Oliveira, to the case, reported CNN.

In the classified document case, the former president has pleaded not guilty to 37 federal charges related to the documents, which were allegedly mishandled when they were taken to the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after Trump left White House.