Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking a federal judge to issue a partial news gag order preventing Donald Trump from falsely claiming that FBI agents who raided his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 were part of a plot to assassinate his husband.
Smith’s team urged Judge Aileen Cannon to “take immediate steps to stop this dangerous smear campaign against law enforcement.”
Trump has repeatedly posted on social media that the FBI is “ready to arrest me and put my family in danger.”
His comments were based on a motion in his criminal case accusing him of withholding classified government documents and obstructing efforts to recover them. The motion was a standard form outlining the Justice Department’s use-of-force policy in searches. It was widely shared by right-wing media, including Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo, but refuted by other media, including Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, who reported that the standard policy was also used in the search of President Joe Biden’s home and other searches.
In their filing, Smith’s team wrote that “the FBI used a form that contains standard and non-objectionable language setting forth the Department of Justice’s use of force policy, which prohibits the use of deadly force except ‘when the officer has a reasonable belief that the victim of such force poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person.’ … The inclusion of this policy is standard practice to restrict the use of force, and it is linked to countless arrest warrants across the country. Moreover, Trump is well aware that no force was used or threatened in the execution of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant: As planned, the FBI executed the search warrant in a professional and cooperative manner, at a time when Trump and his family were out of state.”
Trump, on the other hand, wrote, for example, that the FBI was “authorized to shoot me,” while claiming that it was Biden who authorized the use of deadly force against him.
Smith’s team argued that “these misleading and inflammatory claims expose law enforcement officials involved in this case to unwarranted and unacceptable risks: they invite threats and harassment similar to those experienced by other participants in Trump’s legal proceedings who were the targets of his invective. These risks have the potential to undermine the integrity of the proceedings and endanger the safety of law enforcement.”
Prosecutors want Cannon to “order Trump not to make any public statements that pose a substantial, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement officials involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
Trump is also subject to a partial news blackout in his hush money trial in New York and the federal proceedings on January 6 in Washington. The orders prohibit him from attacking certain people involved in the proceedings and their family members.
Trump’s team has not yet filed a response. The Smith team’s brief said the defense objects to the motion “and the timing of the award on a holiday weekend; in their view, the government has not provided an opportunity for a meaningful award. They do not believe there is an imminent danger and have requested to meet and confer next Monday.” Smith’s team noted that Trump has continued to release the claims.