Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall joined attorneys from 23 other states in opposing a request to restrict Donald Trump’s public statements about his federal criminal case in Florida, including statements about the FBI’s seizure of documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump was indicted last year on charges of illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago and obstructing FBI efforts to get them back. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
On May 31, Smith asked the court to modify Trump’s conditions of release on bond “to make clear that he may not make statements that pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents participating in the investigation and prosecution of this case.”
Smith said Trump has mischaracterized the Mar-a-Lago raid with inflammatory statements that amount to a “dangerous campaign to smear law enforcement.”
The FBI recovered more than 100 documents at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 after obtaining a search warrant.
Trump, in a May 21 post on Truth Social, said:
“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 raid of Mar-A-Lago, AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE. NOW WE KNOW, FOR SURE, THAT JOE BIDEN IS A SERIOUS THREAT TO DEMOCRACY. HE IS MENTALLY UNFIT TO HOLD OFFICE – 25TH AMENDMENT!
The Trump campaign also put out a press release saying:
“BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!
“It’s just been revealed that Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago. You know they’re just itching to do the unthinkable …
“Joe Biden was locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger.”
Special Counsel Smith, in his request to the federal court to restrict Trump’s statements, said the former president grossly distorted the way the search was carried out.
“As Trump is well aware, the FBI took extraordinary care to execute the search warrant unobtrusively and without needless confrontation: they scheduled the search of Mar-a-Lago for a time when he and his family would be away; they planned to coordinate with Trump’s attorney, Secret Service agents, and Mar-a-Lago staff before and during the execution of the warrant; and they planned for contingencies—which, in fact, never came to pass—about with whom to communicate if Trump were to arrive on the scene,” Smith wrote.
“As part of this planning, the FBI used a form that contains standard and unobjectionable language setting out the Department of Justice’s use-of-force policy, which prohibits the use of deadly force except ‘when the officer has a reasonable belief that the subject of such force poses an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury to the officer or to another person.’ The inclusion of that policy is routine practice to restrict the use of force, and it is attached to countless warrants across the country.”
Marshall and the attorney generals from 23 other states said there is no justification for a court order restricting what Trump can say about the case and that granting the request would “place a thumb on the political scale.”
“The American people deserve to hear from the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States on issues facing our country, including the Biden Administration’s possible misuse of law enforcement to target his political rivals,” Marshall said in a press release. “Biden’s requested gag order is a desperate and shocking attempt to silence Trump and skew the election. Biden’s Department of Justice is engaged in an unprecedented assault on Trump’s First Amendment rights and liberties, and we will continue to hold the line against this radical political prosecution.”
Last month, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial, which had been set for May 20.
