CNN
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Special counsel’s office prosecutors have asked a federal judge in Florida to place a gag order on Donald Trump that would limit his ability to comment about law enforcement that searched his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The request – a first in the classified documents mishandling case – comes after the former president has repeatedly and falsely criticized the FBI for having a policy in place around the use of deadly force during the search and seizure of government records at his resort in August 2022.
While Trump has told his supporters he could have been in danger because of the policy, the policy is standard protocol for FBI searches and limits how agents may use force in search operations. The same standard FBI policy was used in the searches of President Joe Biden’s homes and offices in a separate classified documents investigation.
Prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith wrote to Judge Aileen Cannon in a filing Friday night that the conditions that allow Trump not to be in jail awaiting trial should be updated.
The prosecutors say the gag order is needed to protect the integrity of the criminal case and law enforcement officers associated with it. They wrote that his inflammatory statements could cause his supporters to retaliate against federal authorities, some of whom may be witnesses in the case.
“Trump‘s repeated mischaracterization as an attempt to kill him, his family, and Secret Service agents has endangered law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case and threatened the integrity of these proceedings,” prosecutors wrote.
His recent comments, they added, “invite the sort of threats and harassment that have occurred when other participants in legal proceedings against Trump have been targeted by his invective.”
CNN has reached out to Trump’s attorneys for comment.
Prosecutors say Trump’s lawyers told them they are against a restriction on his ability to comment about law enforcement who worked on the investigation, and they opposed the special counsel’s office responding to Trump’s recent remarks to the court late Friday of Memorial Day weekend.
“They do not believe that there is any imminent danger, and asked to meet and confer next Monday,” prosecutors added in the filing.
Prosecutors noted that Trump has been amplifying accusations about the FBI in the search on his Truth Social account Friday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday addressed the claims that Trump has made about the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago. “That allegation is false, and it is 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 said.
“As the FBI advises, it is part of the standard operations plan for searches,” Garland said. “And in fact, it was even used in the consensual search of President Biden’s home.”
The use of deadly force policy is included among several pages of paperwork governing FBI search protocol and policies when they went to Mar-a-Lago, which was made public in Trump’s case in federal court this week. The paperwork also lays out that agents would wear unmarked, business casual attire, and specifies that if Trump were to arrive at Mar-a-Lago during the search, leadership on site would speak to him and his Secret Service detail.
Courts outside of Florida have upheld gag orders that bar Trump from speaking about witnesses, potential jurors and staff working on his cases because of threats and harassment his comments have prompted, among other reasons.
Trump’s ability to comment publicly is still limited in his ongoing New York trial, where he has been held in contempt and fined 10 times for violating that gag order, and in his Washington, DC-based election interference case, where he is awaiting trial in federal court.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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