WASHINGTON (AP) — The judge overseeing Donald Trump case of classified documents in Florida on Tuesday denied the Public Prosecutor’s request prevent the former president from making public statements that could endanger law enforcement officials participating in the prosecution.
US District Judge Aileen Cannon said in its order that prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team did not give defense attorneys enough time to discuss the request before it was filed Friday night. She denied the request without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could file it again.
The request followed Trump’s distorted claim last week that FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago property in August 2021 they were “authorized to shoot me” and were “locked and loaded, ready to take me out and put my family in danger.”
The presumptive Republican presidential candidate was referring to the disclosure in a court document that the FBI, during the search in Palm Beach, Florida, 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 represents an imminent risk of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person.”
Prosecutors said in court filings Friday night that Trump’s statements falsely suggesting that federal agents “were complicit in a plot to assassinate him” exposes law enforcement officers — some of whom prosecutors noted will be called as witnesses in their judgment – “at the risk of threats”. , violence and harassment.”
Defense lawyers, in a court filing Monday night, called prosecutors’ proposed restriction on Trump’s speech “unconstitutional” and noted that the names of the officers in the case are subject to a protective order that prevents their release. public. Defense lawyers said they asked Smith’s team on Friday whether the two sides could meet on Monday before prosecutors filed their request to give the defense time to discuss the matter with Trump. They called prosecutors’ decision to file the motion Friday night “bad faith behavior, plain and simple.”
Trump faces dozens of criminal charges accusing him of illegally accumulating at his Mar-a-Lago estate, confidential documents he took with him after leaving the White House in 2021 and which obstructed the FBI’s efforts to recover them. He pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
It’s between four criminal cases Trump is facing as he tries to reclaim the White House, but outside of the current New York process silence money process, it is unclear whether any of the other three will be tried before the November elections. The decision came as defense lawyers presented their final arguments in the silence case.
Trump has already had his speech restricted in two of the other cases due to incendiary comments that authorities say threaten the integrity of the proceedings.
In the case of New York, Trump was fined It is threatened with arrest for repeatedly violating a gag order that prohibits him from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and certain others connected to the matter.
