Special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors asked the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s classified documents case in Florida on Friday to issue a gag order following remarks he made about the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate.
In a filing on Friday, prosecutors asked Judge Aileen Cannon to modify the conditions of President Trump’s release from jail before trial to prevent him from making statements that may pose a “significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger” to the FBI agents involved in the planning and execution of the search and seizure of presidential documents stored at his Florida estate.
Earlier this month, an operations plan for the Mar-a-Lago raid was produced through discovery. The plan stated that FBI agents would be prepared to “engage with” President Trump and his Secret Service agents should he arrive at the estate during the raid.
The use of deadly force was included in a statement on the document, which quoted standard government policy that noted deadly force may be used “only when necessary” in such cases when the subject of the force “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.”
President Trump’s lawyers stated that there was no justification for the FBI to bring guns into Mar-a-Lago.
Prosecutors say President Trump “distorted the standard inclusion of the policy” when he made statements that the FBI “WAS AUTHORIZED to SHOOT ME.”
Additionally, the former president’s 2024 presidential campaign issued an alert stating that the Department of Justice (DOJ) was “locked and loaded” and “ready to take me out” because the FBI was authorized to “use deadly force” during the raid.
Prosecutors say in their Friday filing that the law enforcement agents participating in the raid acted in an “appropriate and professional manner, subject to the Department of Justice’s standard use-of-force policy.”
“Trump‘s repeated mischaracterization as an attempt to kill him, his family, and Secret Service agents has endangered law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case and threatened the integrity of these proceedings,” the filing states. ”Those deceptive and inflammatory assertions irresponsibly put a target on the backs of the FBI agents involved in this case, as Trump well knows.”
Prosecutors noted that “an armed attack on an FBI office in Cincinnati, Ohio, was carried out by one of his supporters in the wake of Trump’s Truth Social statements inflaming his supporters regarding the search of Mar-a-Lago.”
The Epoch Times contacted President Trump’s attorneys for comment.
President Trump’s lawyers objected to the prosecution’s motion and timing of their request on the Memorial holiday weekend, according to prosecutors.
“They do not believe that there is any imminent danger, and asked to meet and confer next Monday,” the filing states.
However, prosecutors pointed to President Trump’s Truth Social account evidence not to wait until Monday, highlighting a statement by a third party that he shared. Prosecutors say, “Trump has continued to issue false statements, smearing and endangering the agents who executed the search.”
The reshared post included the statement “claiming that the FBI was authorized to use ‘Lethal Force’ on Trump or anyone at MAL– WHILE the FBI/DOJ plants evidence to frame Trump!!!”, according to the filing.
The request for a gag order is the first in President Trump’s classified documents case.
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland responded to claims about FBI agents being authorized to use deadly force.
Mr. Garland disputed the former president’s claims, saying that the document President Trump referred to “is the Justice Department’s standard policy.”
“And in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President [Joe] Biden’s home,” he added.
Earlier this week, the FBI told The Epoch Times that its agents had “followed standard protocol” in the Mar-a-Lago search “as we do for all search warrants.”
