By The opinion
May 24, 2024, 11:21 PM EDT
Special prosecutor Jack Smith, in a presentation on Friday, asked the judge overseeing the case of classified documents that were seized from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, to prevent the former president from speaking about the case in a way that could endanger law enforcement officials.
In his request, Smith asked the court to impose a condition that would ban Trump make public statements that could “pose a significant, imminent and foreseeable danger to law enforcement officials involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
“Whether a particular statement meets that test” must be determined by reference to the full context of the statement,” reads in the document. “But that condition would clearly prohibit new statements misleadingly claiming that the agents involved in executing the search warrant were involved in an effort to kill him, his family, or Secret Service agents.”
The move comes after the former president falsely claimed in an email Wednesday that President Biden was “locked, loaded and ready to take me out”twisting the language of the terms approved for law enforcement as they prepared to register his Mar-a-Lago residence in 2022.
In reality, the language only allows the use of deadly force “when necessary,” such as when someone “poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or another person.”
While Trump has told his supporters that he may have been in danger because of the deadly force policy, This is standard protocol for all FBI searches. and limits how officers can use force in search operations.
The same standard FBI policy was also used in searches of President Joe Biden’s homes and offices in a separate investigation of classified documents.
Prosecutors noted in the filing that the FBI search at the Palm Beach resort It was intentionally done when Trump and his family were away. And, they added, it was coordinated with the Secret Service, without force.
In their argument, prosecutors said Trump’s false claims They could expose authorities (some of whom they said would be witnesses at their trial) to threats of violence or harassment.
“The Government’s request is necessary due to 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,” the documents read. court documents.
“Such statements create an extremely misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents (falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him) and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses in the trial, at the risk of being murdered. threats, violence and harassment,” prosecutors added.
Attorney General Merrick Garland also rejected Trump’s allegations on Thursday, calling them “extremely dangerous.”
“This accusation is false and extremely dangerous,” Garland said. “The document referenced in the indictment is the Department of Justice’s standard policy, which limits the use of force.”
Keep reading:
• Attorney General criticized Trump’s “extremely dangerous” suggestion that Biden wanted him dead
• Trump’s lawyers found classified documents in his bedroom months after the Mar-a-Lago raid
• Judge indefinitely delays Trump’s trial in Florida over classified documents