It’s not only Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge overseeing his absurd business expense records case, Judge Juan Merchan, who want to silence Donald Trump as he speaks out on the various lawfare prosecutions against him—now it’s Special Counsel Jack Smith. Smith is in a tizzy that the former president would dare criticize the tactics used by the FBI and the DOJ when they raided his Palm Beach, Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, in search of evidence regarding the classified documents probe.
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Oh really?
WHOA: Judge Indefinitely Postpones Trump’s Classified Docs Case Because DOJ Mish andled Evidence
Smith, in a Friday night filing, begged Judge Aileen Cannon to force the former president into silence. How dare he criticize the DOJ’s ultra-aggressive use of force in the investigation. Make him stop, Smith demanded:
Special counsel Jack Smith in a Friday filing called on the judge overseeing former President Trump’s classified documents case to block Trump from speaking about the case in a way that could endanger law enforcement officials.
In his request, Smith asked the court to impose a condition that would bar Trump from making public statements that could “pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to the law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
“Whether a particular statement meets that test “must be determined by reference to the statement’s full context,” the filing reads. “But that condition would clearly prohibit further statements deceptively claiming that the agents involved in the execution of the search warrant were engaged in an effort to kill him, his family, or Secret Service agents.”
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We’ve reported on the recently released documents that show that deadly force was authorized for the raid. The DOJ has claimed that the wording is “standard operating procedure” for search warrants, and Trump is trying to incite violence by suggesting otherwise.
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.
Yes, the Mar-a-Lago Raid Was Extraordinary, but the ‘Deadly Force’ Language in the Ops Order Wasn’t
Regardless of one’s interpretation of the language in the warrant, Trump should be within his rights to question the necessity of such an overbearing use of federal authority and power in a case about documents.
But such discussion might not be be helpful for the Special Counsel’s floundering case. Smith has an answer: gag the presumptive GOP nominee in the middle of a campaign in what is possibly the most consequential presidential election in modern times.
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This is a late-breaking story, and RedState will provide you with updates as warranted.
Must-see:
NEW: Unsealed Docs in Trump Mar-a-Lago Case Further Reveal Just How Ludicrous the Raid Was
NEW: Memo Reveals Secret Obama-Era Program That Could Destroy Jack Smith’s Classified Docs Case