Trump will get secret intelligence briefing from Biden White House once he is the Republican nominee even if he is convicted of mishandling classified documents

Donald Trump will get a classified intelligence briefing once he officially becomes the Republican nominee for president this summer despite doubts about his reliability handling sensitive information.

Every nominee has been given the briefing since the 1950s in order to ensure they do not say something in the heat of the campaign that could undermine national security.

But it would be the first time a candidate facing criminal charges of mishandling classified documents was briefed.

Senior officials plan to sit down with Trump and read him into national security matters, according to Politico, whether or not he is convicted.

But it comes with misgivings.

Donald Trump will get a classified intelligence briefing once he officially becomes the Republican nominee for president this summer despite doubts about his reliability

Trump faces 40 felony counts accusing him of willfully retaining after he left the White House dozens of classified documents and rebuffing government demands to give them back

'I'd be afraid about giving him stuff,' a former official said. 'I mean, who knows what kind of riff he would do.'

John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser and now a leading critic of his former boss, said the court case was grounds to withhold sensitive information.

'We haven't faced this situation before. But I think the logic could well dictate to Biden he's not going to give Trump an intelligence briefing,' he said.

The briefings are conducted by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And they have been offered to nominees since 1952.

Unlike the president's daily brief, when he is caught up on threats to the nation and other developments, these are a one-off session.

The aim is not to prepare the candidates for office, according to Mike Morrell, former CIA deputy director and who delivered the daily intelligence briefing to President George W. Bush.

'The objective is to protect national security during the campaign by giving the candidates a deep sense of the national security landscape,' he told the Cipher Brief.

'Let me explain: both our adversaries and our allies and partners will be listening closely, extremely closely, to what the candidates say about the issues during the campaign, and saying the wrong thing could damage our national security. 

'The briefings are meant to help prevent that.'

An image in the indictment against Trump showing documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago

Officials also worried that Trump shared classified intelligence with Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov (left) and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during a 2017 Oval Office meeting

Even in office Trump had a reputation for being cavalier with intelligence.

In 2017, he boasted about classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during an Oval Office meeting. Officials feared the information, about an Islamic State plot, could have exposed the source and the way in which it was collected.

He now faces trial for allegedly keeping classified and other sensitive material after leaving office.

Charges fall under the Espionage Act, as well as counts of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements. 

The case exploded into public view with FBI agents searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, during the summer of 2022, seizing boxes and boxes of material. 

Trump is on course to be declared the official nominee in July at the Republican National Convention.