“Request is necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago,” filing reads.
Donald Trump doubled down on his criticism of the Justice Department’s “deadly force” authorization for its 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago after special counsel Jack Smith requested a gag order barring the former president from speaking out against it.
Smith in a Friday filing called on the Florida judge overseeing Trump’s classified documents case to block Trump from speaking out in a way that could “pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to the law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
“The Government moves to modify defendant Donald J. Trump’s conditions of release, to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case,” the filing reads.
Trump had issued a statement Tuesday condemning the DOJ’s authorization to use “deadly force” in the raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate, calling Joe Biden a “threat to democracy” who is “mentally unfit to hold office.”
Smith’s prosecutorial team argued that Trump’s criticism of the deadly force authorization was misleading because the order was FBI standard operating procedure.
“The Government’s request is necessary because of several intentionally false and inflammatory statements recently made by Trump that distort the circumstances under which the Federal Bureau of Investigation planned and executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago,” the court documents read.
“Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents — falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him — and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment,” prosecutors added.
But Trump in a Truth Social post Saturday doubled down on his assertion that Joe Biden’s DOJ authorized the use of deadly force against him.
“Biden’s DOJ authorized use of deadly force against President Trump in Mar-a-Lago raid!” the post reads.
Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday unsealed numerous motions related to Smith’s classified documents case against Trump, one of which revealed Biden’s FBI authorized the use of deadly force during their raid on Mar-a-Lago authorized by Attorney General Merrick Garland in August 2022.
Tons of new unsealed filings on classified docs case–I will try to post as much as I can (there goes the workout) but this is mind-blowing.
FBI authorized the use of deadly force at Mar-a-Lago pic.twitter.com/f0lR6UifAH
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 21, 2024
The order revealed armed FBI agents were preparing to confront Trump and engage his Secret Service detail if necessary and authorized on-site FBI medical support on the scene and identified a local trauma center for anyone “injured” during the raid.
Garland the FBI defended the authorization to use deadly force against Biden’s chief political rival during their unprecedented raid on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago compound as “standard policy.”
Read Smith’s filing:
