Prosecutors seek to prevent Trump, in the case of confidential files, from making statements that put law enforcement at risk

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors on Friday asked the judge overseeing the confidential documents case against Donald Trump to ban the former president from public statements that “pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement officials” participating in the prosecution.

The request to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon follows a false claim by Trump earlier this week that FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022 were “authorized to shoot me” and were “locked”. & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was referring to the disclosure in a court document that the FBI, during the search, followed a standard use of force policy that prohibits the use of deadly force except when the officer conducting the search has a reasonable belief that the “subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person.”

The policy is routine and aims to limit the use of force during searches. Prosecutors noted that the search was intentionally conducted when Trump and his family were away and was coordinated with the Secret Service. No force was used.

Prosecutors on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team said in court filings Friday night that Trump’s statements falsely suggesting that federal agents “were complicit in a plot to assassinate him” expose law enforcement — some of whom the Prosecutors noted that they will be called as witnesses at his trial – “at the risk of threats, violence and harassment.”

“Trump’s repeated mischaracterization of these facts in widely distributed messages 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 officials said. promoters. Cannon, who was appointed to the bench by Trump.

“A restriction prohibiting future similar statements does not restrict legitimate speech,” they said.

Defense attorneys opposed the government’s motion, prosecutors said. A lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday evening.

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week called Trump’s claim “extremely dangerous.” Garland noted that the document Trump was referring to is a standard policy limiting the use of force that was even used in the consensual search of President Joe Biden’s home as part of an investigation into the Democrat’s handling of classified documents.

Trump faces dozens of criminal charges accusing him of illegally accumulating, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, confidential documents he took with him after leaving the White House in 2021, and obstructing FBI efforts. to get them. to go back. He pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.

It is one of four criminal cases Trump faces as he tries to reclaim the White House, but outside of the ongoing hush money case in New York, it is unclear whether any of the other three will be tried before the election.

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Associated Press reporter Alanna Durkin Richer contributed from Washington.