A federal magistrate in Florida ruled in favor of a protective order, forcing former President Donald Trump and his attorneys not to release evidence in the federal criminal case surrounding Trump’s storage and maintenance of classified documents.

District Court Southern District of Florida Magistrate Bruce Reinhart ordered:

Defendants and Defense Counsel shall not disclose the Discovery Materials or their contents directly or indirectly to any person or entity other than persons employed to assist in the defense, persons who are interviewed as potential witnesses, counsel for potential witnesses, and other persons to whom the Court may authorize disclosure…

The order also requires that evidence gathered during the discovery process be properly stored with labels specifying the applicability of the order. Finally, it enjoins Trump’s defense from making unauthorized copies of materials, limits Trump’s ability to view materials without attorney supervision and requires that all materials be promptly returned to the Department of Justice (DOJ) after 90 days.

The request for the protective order was filed by the DOJ last week in accordance with Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(d)(1), due to the inclusion of “sensitive and confidential information” in the discovery process. At issue in the DOJ’s case against Trump are classified government documents, some bearing top secret designations.

No objections were recorded to the motion or the final order from Trump’s defense counsel.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) searched Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago, Florida in August 2022. There, they allegedly found top secret and confidential materials that Trump took with him after he left office. The DOJ later alleged that evidence of classified documents present at Mar-a-Lago was deliberately concealed by Trump and his team. Trump’s legal team requested a special master to oversee the review of the documents recovered by the FBI during the search, which was later granted by a Florida federal judge. The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit then allowed the DOJ to continue its review of the documents without having to submit them to the special master first.

This investigation and the subsequent legal battles culminated in Trump being indicted on June 8. In the unsealed indictment, prosecutors charged Trump with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and six additional counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, corruptly concealing a document or record, concealing a document in a federal investigation and scheme to conceal false statements and representations. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.

Trump has also been charged in a New York court with falsifying business records about a payment allegedly meant to silence adult film star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. US Attorney General Merrick Garland has also appointed a Special Counsel Jack Smith to oversee an investigation into Trump’s alleged involvement in the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Trump is also currently running for re-election. There is no bar in Article II of the US Constitution against someone convicted of a crime assuming the office of the president. However, some constitutional scholars and politicians have suggested that if Trump is found guilty of a crime in direct relation to the Capitol insurrection, he may be barred from office under the 14th Amendment.