BATON ROUGE- A Louisiana private investigator accused of trying to illegally obtain Donald Trump's tax returns is barred from testifying he acted as a benevolent "white hat hacker" testing security flaws in a government website.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Jordan Hamlett won't be allowed to tell jurors his actions had a "good purpose." However, Hamlett's defense attorney can argue that his client didn't have any "intent to deceive."

Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump's tax returns several weeks before last year's presidential election.

Defense attorney Michael Fiser said Hamlett tried "out of sheer curiosity" to discover whether Trump's tax information could be accessed through a U.S. Department of Education website.

Hamlett awaits trial in December on a charge he misused a Social Security number.