On Friday, Donald Trump’s lawyers challenged special counsel Jack Smith in the classified documents case. its grating requirement Any testimony by the former president that prosecutors say jeopardizes law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation.
In a 20-page filing, defense attorneys alleged that Smith “attempted to limit President Trump’s campaign speech” ahead of the first debate with President Joe Biden later this month.
Smith’s team asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in may To change the terms of Trump’s release in the case, citing his false claims that FBI agents planned to kill him during a classified document search at Mar-a-Lago. Prosecutors said that such statements “endangered the law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith’s request should be denied based on “ambiguities, lack of enforcement criteria and consequential chilling effect.” They also called it “a blatant effort to impose totalitarian censorship on mainstream political speech.”
“No FBI agent involved in the raid offered a statement or even an argument that President Trump’s words put them at risk,” the defense said.
The FBI said the deadly force authorization cited by Trump in previous statements is standard language designed to limit the use of force.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the classified documents case. The trial was adjourned indefinitely.
Cannon set a June 24 hearing on the gag order. There is no set timeline for when competing papers can be decided.
Trump’s attorneys on Friday made many of the same arguments they used in fighting criminal gag orders in New York and Washington, including a focus on First Amendment protections, vague language in prosecutors’ proposed gag orders and what they say are deficiencies. Evidence of actual threats stemming from Trump’s statements.
A complaint is coming the same week Trump’s lawyers have asked a New York court to lift a gag order against the former president during the hush-hush trial in which Trump was later found guilty of 34 felonies.