Donald Trump’s lawyers have criticized special counsel Jack Smith’s gag order request in the former president’s classified documents case in Florida.
Trump’s attorneys suggested the request was an unconstitutional assault on the 2024 Republican candidate and a strategy aimed at aiding Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, reported CNN.
“In Jack Smith’s most recent shocking display of overreach and disregard for the Constitution, the Special Counsel’s Office asks the Court to enter an unconstitutional gag order as one of the release conditions on the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a new filing, repeating their prior statements against gag orders, CNN added.
The attorneys further drew parallels, likening the request to the gag order currently imposed on Trump to the hush-money case in New York, adding, “like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Smith seeks to restrict President Trump’s campaign speech as the first presidential debate approaches at the end of this month.”
In late May, Smith’s attorneys requested the judge to prohibit Trump from making statements that could endanger law enforcement involved in the case, CNN added.
They cited Trump’s claims about the FBI’s readiness to shoot him and a “near-death escape” during a 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago (despite Trump being in New York at the time of the search).
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Prosecutors emphasized that Trump’s claims regarding the FBI’s search plan, which was disclosed to the defense, were completely untrue.
They criticized Trump for misleadingly accusing the FBI of having a special deadly force policy, which they clarified is standard procedure applied to numerous warrants executed by the bureau.
They also noted that both the FBI and AttorneyGeneral Merrick Garland have affirmed the normalcy of this policy, highlighting its application during the investigation of President Joe Biden’s Delaware residence concerning classified information, according to CNN.
In the filing Friday, Trump’s attorneys said prosecutors have not presented “any evidence of threats or harassment resulting from President Trump’s protected speech.”
“Not a single FBI agent who participated in the raid submitted an affidavit, or even an argument, claiming that President Trump’s remarks put them at risk,” his attorneys wrote.
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