Donald Trump's legal team on Monday asked Judge Aileen Cannon, the jurist overseeing the criminal Espionage Act case brought against the former president in Florida, to sanction Special Counsel Jack Smith for the prosecutor's recent attempt to modify the conditions of Trump's release pending trial.
Smith recently moved for what some have compared to a gag order for Trump's recent false claims about the FBI. Specifically, Trump claimed that President Joe Biden and the FBI sought to kill the ex-president, which is why they used a warrant that allowed for "deadly force" when searching his Mar-a-Lago resort for classified records.
In reality, the same language is standard in all similar warrants, and was used in the one employed to search Biden's residence for documents, as well.
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The filing was flagged by several legal experts, including Lawfare's Anna Bower.
"Trump’s team has now asked Judge Cannon to strike the special counsel’s motion to modify Trump’s condition of release—and asks her to impose sanctions on prosecutors who participated in the decision to file the motion," Bower wrote.
MSNBC's Lisa Rubin also chimed in.
"Trump baselessly accused Biden of trying to assassinate him by using standard FBI protocol on a day everyone knew Trump would not be present," Rubin said Monday. "The Special Counsel asked for relief. But now Trump’s team wants sanctions because they got insufficient notice of their client’s highly dangerous statements."
CBS News Congressional Correspondent Scott MacFarlane also highlighted the new court filing.
"Trump defense asks judge to reject Jack Smith request in Florida case that Trump be restricted from statements that 'pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents' & deceptive claims about agents. And Trump seeks sanctions against Smith team," the reporter wrote.
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