Former President Trump’s lawyers accused the government of “unconstitutional censorship” on Monday after federal prosecutors asked a judge in Trump’s classified documents case for a gag order.
In court filings, Trump’s outraged lawyers asked a federal judge in Florida to sanction and fine prosecutors from Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office. The prosecutors had asked the court to change the terms of Trump’s release and to bar him from making any future statements about FBI agents who executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 22, 2023.
“President Donald J. Trump respectfully files procedural objections to the Office of Special Counsel’s May 24, 2024 motion which improperly asks the Court to impose an unconstitutional gag order as a condition of President Trump’s pretrial release based on vague and unsupported allegations of threats against law enforcement officers whose names have been redacted from public documents and whose identities are already the subject of protective orders,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the motion.
“…” [T]”The Court should deny this motion, find civil contempt against all government attorneys involved in the decision to file this motion without meaningful consultation, and impose sanctions after holding an evidentiary hearing regarding the purpose and intent of the office’s decision to willfully ignore required procedures,” the lawyers wrote.
Jack Smith asks judge to restrict Trump’s comments after ‘inflammatory’ comments about FBI raid
Former President Trump and special counsel Jack Smith are pictured here. Trump’s legal team has accused Smith and the prosecution of “unconstitutional censorship” in their motion for a gag order in the Florida archives case. (Getty Images)
Smith’s team filed a motion Friday night with U.S. District Judge Eileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case, asking to bar Trump from making statements that “pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to the law enforcement agencies investigating and prosecuting this case.” In a campaign appeal, Trump claimed FBI agents were “preparing to take me out and put my family at risk.”
Prosecutors said Trump’s “highly misleading” claims cited a standard FBI form detailing the use of force only in emergency situations – the same form used by federal agents when they searched documents at Biden’s home.
Read Trump’s motion below – App users click here:
“But Mr. Trump has twisted standard policy limitations on the use of lethal force to allege that the FBI ‘had the authority to shoot me,’ ‘was itching to do the unthinkable,’ and ‘was prepared to remove me,'” Smith’s team wrote in the filing.
Prosecutors argued that Trump’s “deceptive and inflammatory allegations” put federal agents at “unjustifiable and unacceptable risk” and would subject them to “intimidation and harassment,” “undermining the integrity of the investigative process and endangering the safety of law enforcement.”
New revelations in Florida public records trial attack Trump as ‘crazy’ special counsel
Former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. (Charles Traynor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Trump’s lawyers countered on Tuesday that Smith’s request was an “unusual, unprecedented and unconstitutional application for censorship that unfairly targets the campaign speeches of President Trump, a leading presidential candidate.”
Noting that defense arguments in Trump’s New York criminal case are scheduled to begin in Manhattan on Tuesday, the lawyers asked Judge Cannon to hold a hearing to determine Smith’s “motive and purpose” in filing the gag order motion “on the Friday before the holiday weekend.” They argued that the timing violated rules governing how motions should be filed and was unprofessional.
The 15-page motion calls Smith and his team the “thought police” and accuses the prosecutors of being “biased and reckless” and “driven by political animosity toward President Trump.”
Republicans accuse Justice Department of ‘weaponization’ after FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort; Democrats call it ‘accountability’
Former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was searched by the FBI in 2022. (Getty Images)
Trump has repeatedly said the indictment filed by Smith against him last June was part of a politically motivated “witch hunt” aimed at preventing him from winning the presidential election. Smith’s lawyers strongly deny the charges and say their motives are pure and that they support the rule of law.
Trump is accused of storing classified documents in the mansion that he removed after leaving the White House in 2021, then hindering government efforts to retrieve them. FBI agents seized 33 boxes of documents in the search.
Click here to get the FOX News app
The investigation is being overseen by Smith, an appointee of Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has filed 40 felony charges against Trump, including violating the Espionage Act, making false statements to investigators and conspiring to obstruct justice.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and the case is not expected to go to trial until after the November election.
David Spunt of Fox News and Michael Dorgan of Fox News Digital contributed to this report.
