Former President Donald Trump‘s legal team is pushing for sanctions against special counsel Jack Smith and his office over a request to restrict Trump’s comments about law enforcement agents related to his Florida classified documents case.
Trump’s attorneys filed a motion on Monday urging U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the case, to dismiss Smith’s request. They are also seeking civil contempt findings for all government attorneys involved in the decision and requesting sanctions after an “evidentiary hearing” to look into Smith’s office’s alleged failure to follow required procedures.
Federal prosecutors on Friday asked Cannon to modify the conditions of Trump’s release to prevent him from making public statements that could “pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents.”
Trump’s lawyers argue that Smith’s motion “improperly asks the Court to impose an unconstitutional gag order on President Trump,” based on “vague and unsupported assertions about threats to law enforcement personnel whose names have been redacted from public filings.”
Smith’s office submitted the request following a statement Trump made last week about FBI agents who searched his home in August 2022, asserting they were “authorized to shoot me” and were “locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”
During the search, the FBI adhered to standard use-of-force policies, which prohibit the use of deadly force unless there’s a reasonable belief that the subject intends to harm the officer or another person.
“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,” prosecutors on Smith’s team stated when urging Cannon to limit Trump’s comments about law enforcement agents.
Trump’s motion contended Smith’s request was based on “unsupported assertions about threats to law enforcement personnel” and noted that their names have already been redacted from public filings.
Trump’s team called the petition “unprecedented.”
“The Motion is an extraordinary, unprecedented, and unconstitutional censorship application,” the filing stated. “The Motion unjustly targets President Trump’s campaign speech while he is the leading candidate for the presidency.”
They also criticized the special counsel’s timing of the request, alleging it was filed just before the Memorial Day weekend, with Trump’s team responding within 10 minutes.
“We noted the suspicious timing of the communication,” the filing said, adding that Trump’s team proposed a meeting for Monday evening, which the special counsel dismissed as a “fruitless exercise.”
The filing highlighted additional timing issues concerning Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York, which they claimed the special counsel was aware of.
“Under no circumstances can an email exchange initiated at 5:30 p.m. on a Friday evening constitute the type of conferral required by Local Rule 88.9,” the filing stated. “For President Trump, the fact that the Special Counsel’s Office initiated the exchange on the Friday preceding a holiday weekend is less important than the fact that the Office—well aware of the proceedings in People v. Trump— took these steps when President Trump’s defense summation is scheduled to begin on the morning of May 28.”
Trump’s team further alleged a “disregard of procedural rules” by Smith’s team, criticizing the timing of the request and accusing some prosecutors of “pander[ing] to the media in public filings.”
The motion also requested that Cannon hold a hearing to determine Smith’s “motives and purpose” for making the request “when they did.”
Truth Voices reached out to Smith’s office for comment.
