In response to special counsel Jack Smith’s plea to prevent the former president from making any remarks that could jeopardize law enforcement participating in the investigation, Donald Trump‘s attorneys on Friday retaliated against Smith in the case involving classified data.
Defense lawyers contended in a 20-page document that Smith “seeks to restrict President Trump’s campaign speech” prior to this month’s first debate with President Joe Biden.
Smith’s team, referencing Trump’s fictitious allegations that FBI agents were ready to kill him during the search for sensitive papers at Mar-a-Lago, requested U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in May to change the terms of Trump’s release in the case. Such remarks, according to the prosecution, have “endangered law enforcement officials who were engaged in this case’s investigation and prosecution.”
Smith’s motion should be rejected, according to Trump’s attorneys, because of “the uncertainties, absence of standards for enforcement, and ensuing chilling impact.” Additionally, they described it as “an overt attempt to restrict essential political speech in a totalitarian manner.”
“Not a single FBI agent involved in the raid filed an affidavit or an argument stating that they were put at risk by President Trump’s words,” according to the defense.
According to the FBI, the authorization for the use of deadly force that Trump seemed to be alluding to in his previous statements was ordinary wording intended to restrict the use of force.
Regarding the secret papers issue, Trump has entered a not-guilty plea. The trial has been rescheduled indefinitely.
A hearing on the request for a gag order has been set by Cannon for June 24. When she decides to rule on the opposing files is not predetermined.
Many of the same arguments that Trump’s attorneys have used to oppose gag orders in criminal cases in New York and Washington, D.C., were presented on Friday. These included an emphasis on First Amendment protections, what they perceived to be ambiguous language in the prosecutors’ proposed gag orders and a lack of proof that Trump’s statements had actually threatened anyone.
The application was made in the same week that Trump’s attorneys requested that a New York court lift the gag order that had been placed on the former president during the hush money trial, in which he was ultimately convicted guilty of 34 felonies.