Brandon Van Grack joined Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC's Deadline: White House discussing updates in special counsel Jack Smith's investigation into former President Trump's handling of classified documents.
"Any time in any criminal case the government provides materials to the defense counsel and the defendants, there's a protective order that occurs, even with respect to unclassified information," Brandon said. "What was filed earlier today, the Department of Justice filed their proposed protective order for classified information [which] contains a number of provisions, but part of it is you need a security clearance in order to handle classified information, and not all information that gets provided to defense counsel can be shared with the defendants."
He added: "It's important to underscore this – this is a standard protective order. I'd invite your listeners to compare this to the protective order that was in the case involving the National Guardsman in Massachusetts who posted a bunch of classified information. Some of these passages are identical, in fact. The only real difference that I can see is that this protective order shows that some of the classified information in this case is also subject to the Atomic Energy Act, which is nuclear-related information, but otherwise this is precisely the protective order that individuals have to sign in order to get access to classified information."
Listen to the interview (Brandon's appearance begins at 47:01).
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