Special Counsel Requests Gag Order On Trump Over Threats To Law Enforcement

Special Counsel Jack Smith has requested a federal judge to bar former President Donald Trump from making statements that could endanger law enforcement involved in his classified documents case.

The request follows Trump's false claims that President Joe Biden and the FBI plotted to assassinate him during the August 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago. According to Smith's filing, these remarks distort the FBI's search and endanger agents and witnesses, ABC News reported.

"The Government moves to modify defendant Donald J. Trump's conditions of release, to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case," Smith said.

Trump claimed that Biden was "locked & loaded ready to take me out" and that the DOJ authorized the FBI to use lethal force during the search for classified documents. As per The Washington Post, Smith contends that these statements are false and dangerously misleading.

Smith's filing details the FBI's measures to ensure the Mar-a-Lago search was minimally confrontational, planning the search when Trump and his family were out of state and coordinating with his attorney and Secret Service agents.

Smith also referenced the attack on an FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, which followed Trump's inflammatory comments after the Mar-a-Lago search.

Trump faces 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House. Prosecutors allege he refused to return documents containing sensitive information and obstructed government efforts to retrieve them. Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges last June.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled hearings at the end of June to address various motions by Trump and his co-defendants to dismiss the case.