Prosecutors have renewed their request for a federal judge to order Donald Trump to stop making false claims that the FBI was authorized to kill him when it executed a search warrant at his Florida home in August 2022.
Friday’s motion from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team comes four days after the U.S. District Court judge ruled Aileen Kanon has denied a similar request from prosecutors, using unusually blunt language to fault them for not making sufficient efforts to resolve the issue with Trump’s lawyers before going to court.
The new motion, filed Friday evening, makes the same central argument: that Trump’s claims of an authorization to use deadly force endanger FBI agents who participated in the search or are otherwise connected to the ongoing criminal case in which Trump is accused of hoarding classified documents in his hometown of Mar-a-Lago and obstructing an investigation into this subject.
“These deceptive and inflammatory claims expose the law enforcement professionals involved in this case to unwarranted and unacceptable risks: they invite the kind of threats and intimidation that occurred when other participants in legal proceedings against Trump were targeted by his invective .” wrote prosecutors Jay Bratt and David Harbach. They also warned that the claims could impact potential jurors in the case, which will not currently go to trial.
In the new filing, prosecutors list a series of social media posts and emails about political fundraising in which Trump made inflammatory and false claims, such as “Biden’s DOJ was authorized to shoot me!” and “Joe Biden was locked and loaded and ready to take me out and endanger my family.”
Trump’s comments appear to have been prompted by language in an FBI operations plan related to the search that detailed when agents could use deadly force. However, FBI officials have said that language included in virtually all such plans is intended to limit, not expand, the use of force. In addition, they note that officers deliberately chose to execute the order when Trump was not at home, in order to avoid any confrontation.
Prosecutors asked the judge to modify Trump’s release conditions in the case and ban him from “making statements that pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement officials participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
While the refill details previous threats against witnesses and law enforcement authorities related to legal matters involving Trump, it does not point to actual threats received by FBI agents that appear to be related to his claims about the raid.
Prosecutors also on Friday complied with a request from Cannon, a Trump appointee, to convey the views of Trump’s defense without providing editorial comment. The end of the motion includes language in which Trump’s lawyers say they oppose the judge issuing a gag order in the case.
“President Trump’s position is that the requested change is a blatant violation of the First Amendment rights of President Trump and the American people, which would effectively allow President Trump’s political opponent to regulate his campaign communications to voters across the country “, according to the statement from Trump’s lawyers said.
For the second time, Smith Cannon did not request expedited consideration of the request. Trump is asking for two weeks to respond to the silence request and has asked the judge to suspend that time until officials from the court’s probation office determine whether they agree with prosecutors on the need for a silence order.
