Politics

By Aram Roston and Joseph Tanfani

(Reuters) – After Ron DeSantis, an avid golfer, moved into the Florida governor’s mansion in 2019, workers installed a golf simulator worth tens of thousands of dollars in the private pool cabana so he could practice his game.

But DeSantis did not pay for the simulator. Neither did the state government. Instead, it was funded by a wealthy donor and prominent businessman, Morteza Hosseini, according to four sources familiar with the matter and state government records.

The donation, previously undisclosed, was never reported as a gift by DeSantis, the top rival to former President Donald Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Florida mostly allows officials to receive gifts as long as they are disclosed and won’t influence their official work.

However, the golf simulator transaction appears to have been structured to avoid Florida’s rigorous ethical disclosure requirements, said two governance experts in Florida. A third expert characterized the donation as appropriate under state laws.

Florida state law requires public officials to file quarterly reports listing all gifts received with a value over $100. But DeSantis has never filed a gift disclosure in his four and half years in office, said Lynn Blais, administrator of the Florida Commission on Ethics. The commission oversees compliance by state officials with government ethics laws.

“In my mind, it subverts the principle of why we require gifts to be disclosed,” said Ben Wilcox, research director of Florida Integrity, a government watchdog group.

Hosseini, chief executive of Florida developer ICI Homes Residential Holdings and a close ally of DeSantis, said in a statement that the donation was “entirely permissible under Florida law.”

A spokesperson for DeSantis said: “As with all donations, it was accepted and coordinated by staff and approved by legal counsel. Donations to the residence and grounds have been received over many administrations. It will remain in the state’s possession for the use of first families, their guests, and staff as it is now.”

The golf simulator was technically donated to the Mansion Commission, a state agency that oversees the governor’s mansion, according to records related to the donation, including correspondence between DeSantis’ office and Hosseini. The records were received in a freedom-of-information request.

James Uthmeier, at the time DeSantis’ deputy general counsel, said in a Sept. 13, 2019, letter to Hosseini that the simulator would be considered “on loan” to the Mansion Commission for an “undisclosed term” and would be returned to Hosseini “immediately upon request,” the records said.

Uthmeier wrote that the loan was “permissible” according to state law and the Governor’s Ethics Code. Uthmeier, now DeSantis’ chief of staff, did not respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not determine who structured the donation as a loan.

The simulator, like other items loaned to the mansion, is considered state property, according to the Florida law setting up the Mansion Commission. DeSantis, like other governors, cannot take items from the mansion after leaving office without the commission’s approval. Florida’s Department of Management Services, which oversees the commission, did not respond to a request for comment.

“It appears to me that would still be a gift,” since it was intended for DeSantis’ personal use, said Barbara Petersen, director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group. Uthmeier’s letter appeared written to “give the governor cover” for not reporting it as a gift, she said.

While DeSantis is known for his political fundraising prowess, the disclosure of the golf simulator shows that he benefited personally from at least one significant donation from a staunch ally in the Florida business community.

Hosseini and his firm have contributed more than $240,000 to DeSantis’ campaigns, finance records show. The developer has been a close adviser for DeSantis, who appointed him to the board of trustees of the University of Florida. Hosseini now serves as the board’s chairman. His company is one of Florida’s largest home builders.

In his statement to Reuters, Hosseini said that the simulator “was provided to the residence gym, as things have been in the past, for the use of the family, guests, and staff, during this and subsequent administrations.”

“WE SHOWED HIM HOW TO USE IT”

The simulator was manufactured by aboutGOLF, according to one of the workers who installed it. The device can allow DeSantis to play a “virtual” golf round with a high-resolution widescreen that gives precise video of courses played by professionals, and a computer that calculates what the golf ball would do after each real swing.

An aboutGOLF representative said the company’s management declined to comment.

The simulator was fitted in DeSantis’s cabana months after the Washington Post reported that then-president Trump had installed a high-end golf simulator in the White House, replacing a model used by his predecessor, Barack Obama.

Trump paid for his own golf simulator, according to the Washington Post. DeSantis, however, does not have comparable wealth, state disclosure records show. DeSantis sold his own home in Florida for less than $500,000 shortly after moving into the governor’s mansion, and his most recent financial disclosure, filed in December 2021, says his net worth was $319,987, including his retirement funds.

The records show that law enforcement cleared two “Golf Simulator Installers” to do work in the governor’s mansion after the pair were cleared in a June 2019 background check, less than six months after DeSantis, a former congressman, became governor.

One of the installers, Ronald Watson, told Reuters that he and a colleague traveled to the state capital of Tallahassee from Ohio to install the device, which he said was shipped by truck and took up one wall of the governor’s cabana.

Watson did not remember the specific “package” but said it was a “widescreen” – a flat-screen version of the company’s products. An aboutGOLF list of products says those models start at $46,500.

Watson said he met DeSantis briefly after the installation. “We showed him how to use it, and he left right after that,” Watson said.

The simulator was included in an inventory of donations to the mansion since 1957 that was also provided to Reuters in response to its public records request.

Wilcox, of Florida Integrity, said he believes the simulator should have been disclosed as a gift. “It may not have broken Florida ethics laws, but it’s against the whole principle of the gift disclosure requirement.”

Caroline Klancke, executive director of the nonpartisan Florida Ethics Institute, disagreed. The gift disclosure rule probably wouldn’t apply in this case under a strict reading of rules around donating to state agencies, she said.

Because it was directed to the mansion commission, the donation “could fall within a loophole or exemption” in the gifts law, she said. She noted that the law also prohibits certain people, including lobbyists and state vendors, from making any gifts. Generally, though, the goal of the law is transparency for the public, she said.

The list of items donated to the mansion in 2019 also includes a treadmill at the cabana. According to the list, the “acquisition cost” of both the treadmill and the golf simulator are listed as $1. Reuters could not determine who donated the treadmill.

(Editing by Jason Szep)

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By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday defended the central bank’s review of bank regulatory and capital rules from skeptical Republican lawmakers concerned that a string of bank failures in the spring would prompt the Fed to push back too hard on the financial sector.

“There are a number of proposals in the works. They have not been finalized,” Powell told members of the House Financial Services Committee, who questioned why the Fed might consider forcing banks to raise more capital while at the same time saying that the financial system was stable, and that the failure of institutions like Silicon Valley Bank was largely the result of poor management.

Any change of capital rules or other regulations “would need to be shown to be justified,” Powell said.

Though the appearance was one of Powell’s regular twice-yearly monetary policy updates to Congress, the hearing was dominated by questions from the panel’s Republican majority about a review of bank supervision and regulation launched by Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr after the failure of SVB and other institutions.

Powell said any changes “will take time,” and should not impact the industry in the near term. The proposals “are still to some extent in motion…It will take quite a while to decide what to do” and years after that to implement, he said.

Nominees to three Fed board positions faced similar queries in a separate hearing in the Senate.

On monetary policy Powell kept the focus on the central bank’s fight to lower inflation and said the process “has a long way to go.”

“Inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year,” Powell said in remarks to the House panel. “Nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high, and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go.”

Though Fed officials held off on raising interest rates at their meeting last week, Powell called that an exercise in prudence, allowing time to gather more information before deciding on further rate increases that Fed policymakers feel will be necessary by the end of the year.

Powell and nominees for three Fed Board seats testified over several hours on Wednesday, laying out a set of views that could broadly shape the economic conditions facing the country during what may be an era-defining political rematch next year between incumbent Democrat Joe Biden and Republican former President Donald Trump.

Despite the consensus on lowering inflation, the Fed is at a point where opinions about the need for and timing of additional interest rate increases may start to diverge. As it was for past presidential incumbents, how that debate gets resolved could make the difference between a benign election-year economy and a corrosive one.

For Biden, the success or failure of Fed policy could mean a “soft landing” of continued economic growth, lower inflation and only modestly higher unemployment, or it could force him to campaign against a backdrop of increasing joblessness, stubbornly higher prices, and punishing interest rates for anyone trying to buy a home or car or finance a business.

The Fed at its meeting last week held its benchmark interest rate steady at between 5% and 5.25%, but officials projected rates will have to increase another half percentage point by year’s end because inflation has been falling so slowly and remains more than double the Fed’s 2% target.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Dan Burns and Andrea Ricci)

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By Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason and Tom Hals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could avert a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

The news sparked accusations of favorable treatment for the Democratic president’s son from former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who for years have attacked both Bidens.

Their accusations of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden relating to Ukraine and China prompted the investigation by David Weiss – the U.S. attorney in Delaware appointed by Trump – that led to the charges. The two misdemeanor tax charges were Hunter Biden’s first.

The younger Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, consultant to foreign companies, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

The announcement by the Justice Department comes as President Biden is in the middle of a re-election campaign that may pit him again against Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024. As president, Trump asked Chinese and Ukrainian authorities to investigate Hunter Biden’s activities in their countries.

According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income of more than $1.5 million in 2017 and in 2018 but did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000.

He is also charged with unlawfully owning a firearm from roughly Oct. 12 to Oct 23, 2018 when he was using and addicted to a controlled substance, the Justice Department said. For that charge, he entered a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.

“It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” his attorney, Christopher Clark, said in a statement. “I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

Weiss said the investigation is ongoing, a standard statement in such announcements.

The White House on Tuesday declined to comment on the charges or the deal.

“The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

Hunter Biden is likely to face a sentencing range of 12-18 months for the tax charges, about half of which could be spent inside a prison cell, according to sentencing expert Tess Lopez.

But the odds he will get sentenced to prison are low, based on the tax loss amount, his status as a first-time offender and his willingness to accept responsibility for his actions.

“He’s not going to prison,” said Michael Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who now chairs the white-collar practice at the law firm Cole Schotz. “He is facing prison time, but whether or not practically and realistically he goes is very different.”

REPUBLICANS SEE ‘SLAP ON THE WRIST’

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He denied wrongdoing.

He described in a 2021 memoir dealing with substance abuse issues in his life, including crack cocaine use and alcoholism. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine, sources said at the time.

The Weiss inquiry initially examined potential violations of tax and money laundering laws in foreign business dealings, principally in China, sources told Reuters.

The investigation headed by Weiss began as early as 2018, according to U.S. media reports. Weiss was asked to stay on in the role, after Trump left the White House and President Biden began, to continue the probe.

The probe followed accusations of influence peddling against Hunter Biden by Trump and others, as well as Trump’s efforts to get Ukrainian officials to investigate the son of the man he saw as his likely 2020 presidential challenger. Those efforts, including a suspension of congressionally approved military aid for Ukraine, led to Trump’s first impeachment.

Republicans on Tuesday roundly criticized the deal as being favorable to the president’s son.

Representative James Comer, the Republican chair of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which has been leading House Republicans’ investigations into Biden’s family, called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist” and said it would not deter his panel’s work.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight panel, accused Republicans in a statement of “wailing about the work” of a Trump-appointed attorney.

“This development reflects the Justice Department’s continued institutional independence in following the evidence of actual crimes and enforcing the rule of law even in the face of constant criticism and heckling by my GOP colleagues who think that the system of justice should only follow their partisan wishes,” Raskin said about the charges.

Trump, who was recently indicted on federal criminal charges that he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office, also criticized the deal.

“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” he said on his Truth Social platform.

President Biden has two surviving children, Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer and his daughter Naomi Biden died as an infant after a car accident that also killed Joe Biden’s first wife.

Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a sitting president to be indicted, according to Aaron Crawford, who specializes in presidential history at the University of Tennessee.

Crawford said the family of several presidents were ensnared in scandals, including George H.W. Bush’s son Neil, who directed a failed savings and loan, and Richard Nixon’s brother Don, who was rescued from business failures by wealthy businessman Howard Hughes.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Jeff Mason in Washington and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Susan Heavey, Moira Warburton and Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Susan Heavey, Sarah N. Lynch and Jacqueline Thomsen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has set an initial trial date of Aug. 14 in Florida on former President Donald Trump’s federal charges of willful retention of classified government records and obstruction of justice, according to a court order on Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s special counsel in the case, Jack Smith, promised a speedy trial after a 37-count indictment charging Trump with willfully retaining classified government records and obstructing justice.

The date, if it holds, would put Trump on trial nine days ahead of the first Republican presidential debate scheduled for Aug. 23.

But the complexities of handling highly classified evidence, the degree to which Trump’s legal team challenges the government’s pretrial motions, and the way the judge manages the schedule could all lead to a trial that is anything but swift, legal experts say.

A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment, while Trump’s lawyers did not immediately return requests for comment.

The latest order came after a U.S. judge on Monday ordered Trump’s defense lawyers not to release evidence in the classified documents case to the media or the public, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

Trump was arraigned in federal court in Miami last Tuesday, during which he pleaded not guilty to charges he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office and lied to officials who sought to recover them.

Cannon’s order setting a tentative Aug. 14 trial is considered standard.

However, the case will need to proceed under a strict and meticulous set of rules set forth in a law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA): a law that aims to protect classified evidence and manage how such records can be disclosed.

Cannon previously directed Trump’s defense attorneys to start the process of seeking security clearances so they can review the evidence, as required by CIPA.

However, the government customarily files a motion with the court under CIPA that leads to the parties discussing the pretrial schedule – a step that has not yet happened in the case.

“It seems like a tight schedule to me, and courts are sometimes surprised at the ways in which classified information can slow a case down because of both the procedural law and the security measures involved,” said David Aaron, a former federal prosecutor who is now with the law firm Perkins Coie.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Jacqueline Thomsen and Sarah N. Lynch; Writing by by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Jonathan Oatis)

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By Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason and Tom Hals

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes and to enter into an agreement that could enable him to avoid a conviction on a gun-related charge, according to a court filing on Tuesday.

The federal charges against Hunter Biden resulted from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware, who was appointed by Republican then-President Donald Trump.

Hunter Biden, 53, for years has been the focus of unrelenting attacks by Trump and his Republican allies, who have accused him of wrongdoing relating to Ukraine and China, among other matters. The president’s son has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

According to court filings, Hunter Biden received taxable income in excess of $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018, but he did not pay income tax those years despite owing in excess of $100,000. The two counts are misdemeanors.

His attorney, Christopher Clark, said the government would file a firearm charge against his client that would be subject to a pretrial diversion agreement, an alternative to prosecution that is sometimes used to allow defendants to avoid prison time or a criminal conviction.

“It is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved,” Clark said. “I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward.”

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs. He denied wrongdoing.

He described in a 2021 memoir dealing with substance abuse issues in his life, including crack cocaine use and alcoholism. He was discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2014 after testing positive for cocaine, sources said at the time.

President Biden has long expressed support and pride in his son for overcoming his addiction.

The White House on Tuesday declined to comment further.

“The President and First Lady love their son and support him as he continues to rebuild his life. We will have no further comment,” spokesperson Ian Sams said in a statement.

The Weiss inquiry initially examined potential violations of tax and money laundering laws in foreign business dealings, principally in China, sources told Reuters. The investigation headed by Weiss began as early as 2018, according to U.S. media reports.

A senior Republican congressman, James Comer, in 2022 accused the U.S. Treasury Department of withholding financial “suspicious activity reports” to shield Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

Comer, chair of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, which has been leading House Republicans’ investigations into Biden’s family, called the plea deal “a slap on the wrist” and said it would not deter his panel’s work.

Trump, who was recently indicted on federal criminal charges that he unlawfully kept national-security documents when he left office, also criticized the deal.

“Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere ‘traffic ticket.’ Our system is BROKEN!” he said on his social media platform.

President Biden has two surviving children, Hunter Biden and daughter Ashley Biden. His son Beau Biden died in 2015 of cancer and his daughter Naomi Biden died as an infant after a car accident that also killed Joe Biden’s first wife.

Hunter Biden appears to be the first child of a sitting president to be indicted, according to Aaron Crawford, who specializes in presidential history at the University of Tennessee.

Crawford said the family of several presidents were ensnared in scandals, including George H.W. Bush’s son Neil, who directed a failed savings and loan, and Richard Nixon’s brother Don, who was rescued from business failures by wealthy businessman Howard Hughes.

(This story has been refiled to add the dropped word ‘son’ in the headline)

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Jeff Mason, Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Heavey in Washington and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Additional reporting by Moira Warburton; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Heather Timmons and Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Monday criticized Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville for holding up some 200 Pentagon nominees over a Defense Department abortion policy.

“It’s just bizarre. I don’t remember it happening before, and I’ve been around,” Biden said of the actions of Tuberville at a fundraiser for wealthy donors in California’s Silicon Valley.

Tuberville, a former football coach from Alabama, began blocking confirmations to senior Pentagon posts in March to protest a Defense Department policy enacted last year that provides paid leave and reimburses costs for service members who travel to get an abortion.

The Alabama senator has called the policy a violation of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits using federal taxpayer funds for abortion services.

Earlier this month, the White House slammed the lawmaker. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called his actions “shameful” and accused him of endangering national security.

Jean-Pierre said the senator’s blockade on the nominees was hurting military families and risking “our military readiness by depriving our armed forces of leadership.”

The Alabama senator is blocking what is usually a speedy process to confirm Pentagon nominees. If he persists, the U.S. Senate would have to consider each nominee in a longer process that takes up valuable floor time.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May said the holdup as endangering national security and called the block “irresponsible.”

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Los Gatos, California, and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out a lower court ruling that blocked South Carolina from ending public funding to Planned Parenthood, giving the Republican-governed state another chance to defend its bid to deprive the reproductive healthcare and abortion provider of government money.

The justices sent the case back to the lower court to reconsider the case in light of their 7-2 ruling on June 8 in a similar case from Indiana preserving an individual’s right to sue government officials over alleged violations of rights created by federal programs that Congress enacts through its spending power, like the Medicaid health insurance program for the poor.

The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had barred South Carolina from terminating funding to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, the organization’s regional affiliate, under Medicaid, because the organization provides abortions.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic operates clinics in the South Carolina cities of Charleston and Columbia, where it provides physical exams, cancer and other health screenings, as well as abortions. The clinics annually serve hundreds of patients covered by Medicaid, a state-federal health insurance program covering low-income Americans.

The Planned Parenthood affiliate and Medicaid patient Julie Edwards sued in 2018 after Republican Governor Henry McMaster ordered state officials to end the organization’s participation in the state Medicaid program by declaring any abortion provider unqualified to provide family planning services.

At issue is whether recipients of Medicaid have the right to challenge state determinations that a medical provider is not qualified to provide certain services. The justices in 2020 turned away an appeal by the state at an earlier stage of the case.

The Supreme Court’s June 8 ruling allowed an Indiana nursing home resident’s family to sue over his care at a government-run facility under the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act. The justices made clear, however, that lawsuits like the family’s, brought under an 1871 law that helps individuals challenge illegal acts by state officials, are the exception, not the rule.

In the South Carolina case, the 4th Circuit in 2022 ruled in Planned Parenthood’s favor, finding that both the right to sue under the 1871 law and the state’s move to defund the organization violated Edwards’ right under Medicaid to freely choose a qualified provider.

“To allow the state to disqualify Planned Parenthood would nullify Congress’s manifest intent to provide our less fortunate citizens the opportunity to select a medical provider of their choice, an opportunity that the most fortunate routinely enjoy,” the 4th Circuit said.

South Carolina is one of numerous Republican-led states that have moved to ban or restrict abortion since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure nationwide.

South Carolina’s legislature in May passed a law to ban most abortions after about six weeks, but a judge blocked it. The law is a revised version of a previous ban that the state’s highest court struck down in January.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham)

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By Sarah N. Lynch and Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to federal income tax charges in a deal with the Justice Department, according to court documents on Tuesday.

The charges against Hunter Biden arose from an investigation by David Weiss, the U.S. attorney in the Democratic president’s home state of Delaware who was appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump.

According to the deal, Biden also entered the pretrial diversion agreement on one firearm offense.

Hunter Biden, 53, for years has been the focus of unrelenting attacks by Trump and his Republican allies who have accused him of wrongdoing relating to Ukraine and China, among other matters. Hunter Biden has worked as a lobbyist, lawyer, investment banker and artist, and has publicly detailed his struggles with substance abuse.

Hunter Biden disclosed in December 2020 that Weiss’s office was investigating his tax affairs.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Heavey; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

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(Reuters) -A U.S. judge in Florida on Monday ordered defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump not to release evidence in the classified documents case with the news media or the public ahead of trial, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

“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, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” the order filed on Monday said.

It also specified that Trump “shall not retain copies” and that he may only review case materials “under the direct supervision of defense counsel or a member of defense counsel’s staff.”

The order granted a motion filed last week by prosecutors who had asked the court to put conditions on how the defense stores and uses the documents.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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(Reuters) – A U.S. judge in Florida on Monday ordered defense lawyers for former President Donald Trump not to release evidence in the classified documents case to the media or the public, according to a court filing.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart also put strict conditions on Trump’s access to the materials.

“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, without prior notice to and consent of the United States or approval of the Court,” the order filed on Monday said.

It also specified that Trump “shall not retain copies” and that he may only review case materials “under the direct supervision of Defense Counsel or a member of Defense Counsel’s staff.”

The order granted a motion filed last week by prosecutors who had asked the court to put conditions on how the defense stores and uses the documents.

Trump, who is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was indicted on federal charges earlier this month. He was accused of illegally retaining classified government documents after leaving the White House and then conspiring to obstruct a federal probe of the matter.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 37 counts in court.

The former president faces other legal hurdles, having been indicted by New York prosecutors in connection with an alleged hush-money payment to a porn star.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, is also probing Trump’s alleged role in actions surrounding his loss in the 2020 presidential election that culminated in Trump supporters’ deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

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