Former President Donald Trump showed up to court for a high-stakes private huddle with Trump-appointed Federal Judge Aileen Cannon and his attorneys to discuss classified evidence in his Espionage Act case.

Just hour after dancing along with cheerleaders at his resort’s Super Bowl LVIII party, Trump was seen arriving for an in-chambers conference with Cannon — a Trump appointee — and his attorneys after Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a 22-page motion in which he identified several instances of “clear error” by Cannon that could expose witnesses unnecessarily.

Smith alleged in his filing that the Trump team’s discovery requests would expose witnesses to “Trump world” threats and intimidation.

Trump and his team will meet with Cannon alone in chambers, and Smith and his team will meet with her later. From CNN:

Trump arrived at the federal courthouse Monday morning as he and his attorneys plan to meet for several hours with Cannon in a closed-door hearing without prosecutors present to discuss the case “in detail,” according to court documents. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team will meet with Cannon afterward.

The defense lawyers will argue for access to classified evidence in the case they or their clients haven’t yet seen – and that prosecutors and intelligence agencies seek to keep from them, potentially giving them only summaries of the information because of how sensitive it is, according to the court record.

In August of 2022, the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home kicked off a stream of invective and threats against the FBI and eventually led to Trump’s arrest and arraignment on 37 counts related to violations of the Espionage Act. Critics have accused Judge Cannon — a Trump appointee — of slow-walking the case and making rulings adverse to the prosecution.

Smith’s latest filing accuses Cannon of making “clear error” in several instance, and risking the safety of witnesses:

(R)evelation of these witnesses’ identities, or the substance of their interviews with the FBI, dangerously risks exposing them to the same type of harassment and intimidation described above and experienced by the witness in the sealed ex parte exhibit. Indeed, the witness whose statement appears in Exhibit D declined to have his interview recorded, citing the associated risks to him in “Trump world” of doing so. Exhibit D also contains the witness’s opinions about other potential witnesses and information about the case that other witnesses have revealed, but that are not public, as well as information about uncharged potentially obstructive conduct by a defendant, and speculation about witness tampering by an uncharged individual.

Read the full filing here.

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