Judge in Donald Trump's classified documents case rejects gag request from prosecutors

The federal judge in former President Donald Trump's classified documents case rejected a request Tuesday from prosecutors to prohibit him from commenting on FBI agents who seized the records at Mar-a-Lago. She also refused a defense request to hold the prosecutors in contempt merely for requesting the order.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's urgent request Friday for the gag order "wholly lacking in substance in professional courtesy." She ruled that prosecutors should have taken time to meet with Trump's lawyers, as the Trump team requested, to address the defense's concerns.

"Any future, non-emergency motion brought in this case − whether on the topic of release conditions or anything else − shall not be filed absent meaningful, timely, and professional conferral," Cannon wrote. "Failure to comply with these requirements may result in sanctions."

A spokesperson for Smith's team declined to comment on Cannon's ruling.

Smith's team had asked Cannon on Friday to prohibit Trump from commenting about law enforcement agents after Trump claimed the FBI “was authorized to shoot me” and agents were “locked &loaded ready to take me out” when they went to Mar-a-Lago to recover classified documents Trump had taken after leaving office and refused to return to the government.

Trump, who was not present during the search, has complained about an FBI policy for agents to be armed during such a search. But the FBI said the policy was standard for all searches and prosecutors wrote that “no force was used or threatened during the search.” Attorney General Merrick Garland said Trump’s description was “false” and "dangerous."

By asking to change Trump’s conditions of remaining free before trial, the request threatened to jail Trump rather than just fine him, if he violated it.

But Trump's lawyers criticized the request on the eve of Memorial Day weekend and said prosecutors should be punished for not waiting to meet Monday to discuss their concerns. The filing came as the lawyers were preparing for closing arguments in Trump’s New York hush money trial.

“This is bad-faith behavior, plain and simple,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Christopher Kise wrote. “The Motion is an extraordinary, unprecedented, and unconstitutional censorship application.”

Prosecutors seek to jail rather than fine Trump for commenting on FBI

The dispute marks an escalation in proposed punishment for Trump from fines to jail − and a more hostile response from his lawyers to the threat − if he violates a gag order in a criminal case.

Two New York judges fined him a combined $25,000 for violating gag orders against talking about witnesses or court staffers. The federal judge in Trump’s election interference case in Washington has also ordered him not to comment on participants in that case.

In the documents case, Trump faces 40 charges of hoarding hoarding national defense records at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, after leaving the White House. FBI agents seize the documents during an August 2022 search after his lawyers had certified that all classified records had been returned to the government.

Trump posts about FBI 'danger' to law enforcement agents: prosecutors

Smith’s team asked Cannon to modify Trump’s conditions of release to prevent statements “that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”

One exhibit was an all-caps post on Truth Social saying the FBI was authorized “to use deadly (lethal) force” during the search. Another exhibit was an email from Trump’s presidential campaign saying “DOJ was authorized to shoot me!”

Trump continued to post about the search after the filing. About noon on Saturday, Trump posted the "DOJ authorized use of deadly force against President Trump in Mar-a-Lago raid."

"As we also tried to explain earlier, our judgment was that the situation your client has created necessitated a prompt request for relief that could not wait the weekend to file," prosecutor David Harbach told Trump's lawyers in an email.

Trump’s lawyers, who were notified about the request about 5:30 p.m. on Friday, asked prosecutors to hold off filing until they could meet Monday. But prosecutors filed their motion about 8 p.m. Friday.

“Instead, they persisted with a troubling pattern of pursuing media coverage rather than justice,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “Such an approach requires consequences to ensure fundamental fairness.”

Trump’s lawyers asked Cannon to find all the lawyers who participated in the filing in contempt and to decide on sanctions after holding a hearing.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge rejects prosecution gag request in Trump's classified records case