Judge rejects Trump gag order in classified docs case over ‘inflammatory’ remarks about FBI’s deadly force authorization
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected a request by prosecutors to impose a gag order barring Donald Trump from making inflammatory comments about law enforcement, after the former president, his attorneys and allies drew attention to an FBI authorization order for “deadly force” while executing a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022.
In denying the gag request, US District Judge Aileen Cannon also accused special counsel Jack Smith’s office of hastily submitting a motion “wholly lacking in substance” and without the “professional courtesy” of first conferring with Trump’s legal team.
Cannon, appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2020, also said the gag order “implicates substantive and/or Constitutional questions” and had been introduced “for the first time in this proceeding,” buried in a footnote of Smith’s motion.
On May 21, Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise highlighted the “deadly force” authorization in an operations order ahead of the Aug. 8, 2022, search of the former president’s Palm Beach, Fla., resort home for classified documents.
Trump, 77, and far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) exploded on social media over the order — despite statements from federal law enforcement that the authorization was a routine protocol measure.
“WOW! I just came out of the Biden Witch Hunt Trial in Manhattan, the ‘Icebox,’ and was shown Reports that Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, in their Illegal and UnConstitutional [sic] Raid of Mar-a-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE — 25TH AMENDMENT!” he thundered.
In May, Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump $1,000 and threatened him with prison time for at least 10 violations of a gag order requested by District Attorney Alvin Bragg as part of the former president’s hush money case.
“The Biden DOJ and FBI were planning to assassinate Pres Trump and gave the green light,” Greene added in an X post — an allegation that Attorney General Merrick called “false” and “extremely dangerous.”
“The document that is being referred to in the allegation is the Justice Department’s standard policy limiting the use of force,” Garland told reporters Friday at the Justice Department
Smith’s team filed their gag order request later that same day, as most Americans were enjoying the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend.
Trump’s conditions of release, saying his “false and inflammatory” comments about the FBI could subject the bureau and trial witnesses to “threats, violence and harassment.”
Trump’s lawyers opposed Smith’s request and his lawyers requested sanctions against the prosecutors, arguing they engaged in “bad faith behavior” by rushing to file the request just ahead of the holiday weekend and of failing to give the defense team sufficient notice to confer about the matter.
Cannon has instructed both parties going forward to clearly designate in court filings when they are conferring before filing motions and include “no more than 200 words verbatim from the opposing side on the subject of conferral.”
“Failure to comply with these requirements,” she warned, “may result in sanctions.”
