Florida court turns off wifi to block live reporting of Trump hearing
The court confirmed to The Independent that the wifi has been turned off but declined to offer further information.
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
A Florida court has turned off its wifi in an attempt to block live reporting of a hearing concerning former President Donald Trump.
“Bad news friends. Florida court is turning wi-fi off to block the media from reporting the Trump hearing in real-time,” Justice Department reporter Sarah Lynch of the Reuters news agency tweeted on Thursday. “This truly sucks and I don’t understand it. We do this in DC District Court all the time. It makes courts accessible to the public. I am beyond annoyed.”
She added: “I am told texting during the hearing is also BANNED. So our reporter inside the courthouse cannot transmit what happens until this is over.”
The court confirmed to The Independent that the wifi has been turned off but declined to offer further information.
Attorneys representing Mr Trump are facing the Department of Justice (DoJ) as the former president’s team argues that a so-called special master should review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago by the FBI.
The investigation into Mr Trump’s handling of classified documents could lead to charges for holding secret information and hiding it from government investigators.
The request for an outside review of the documents found at Mr Trump’s private club and residence in Southern Florida comes after a federal magistrate judge issued a search warrant seeking evidence concerning the handling of top secret documents as well as possible obstruction of justice.
US District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Mr Trump, suggested last week that she was considering granting the request for a special master, but it wasn’t greenlit at the time, according to Politico.
The DoJ rejected the request from the Trump team, arguing that they had put in place a “filter team” to remove any attorney-client information that may have been found during the search on 8 August.
Prosecutors said that if a special master is assigned to the case, that individual should be restricted to looking for attorney-client information and their search shouldn’t include documents containing information that Mr Trump is arguing should be out of reach for investigators, such as information covered by executive privilege.
Thursday’s court battle also garnered attention after DoJ said in a court filing that Mr Trump’s legal team had been inaccurate in their claims that all classified documents had been handed over following the issuing of a grand jury subpoena in May.
A photograph from the 8 August search included in the court filing from DoJ now appears to reveal those claims were wrong as it shows a number of classified documents on the floor of Mr Trump’s office in Mar-a-Lago, as The Independent previously reported.
“A lot of people think that when you walk into my office, they have confidential documents or whatever. It may be all declassified, but I had confidential documents spread out all over my floor,” Mr Trump told Real America’s Voice on Thursday. “And like a slob, like I’m sitting there reading these documents all day long or somebody else would be.”
“It’s so it’s so dishonest when you look at it,” he added.
“You look at the floor and you see documents, right? You have cover sheets of documents. Now, they put them there,” he claimed concerning the federal investigators.