On Friday night before the Memorial Day weekend when no one was looking, Special Counsel Jack Smith, he of the J6 and Mar-a-Lago federal cases against Donald Trump, made a move that looked desperate, contemptuous, and vindictive. Now Trump's lawyers have responded, and you may want to get the popcorn.
Since Joe Biden unleashed the dogs on Donald Trump and green-lighted all the criminal charges against the former president, including the raid on his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, sentient Americans have wondered how much more ridiculous this lawfare will get.
Asked and answered.
Friday night's latest insult move came in the form of an urgent request to federal Judge Aileen Cannon to essentially gag the former leader of the free world because he's DANGEROUS and says dangerous things about the FBI!
Smith said that Trump's TruthSocial post on May 21 put FBI officers at risk. Trump wondered in his post who's a bigger "threat to democracy," him or the guy who sent the FBI SWAT team to raid his house for — documents? Aren't there federal officers at Mar-a-Lago securing Trump's home? What about their safety?
There is an entire swath of humanity in the United States that already has deep questions about Joe Biden's mental fitness to hold office and haven't picked up a gun to hurt him or anyone protecting him. But Biden sent men with guns to Trump's home.
The special counsel also took umbrage at this message that Trump issued on TruthSocial about his Secret Service guys.
The special counsel complained that Trump also sent out an alert about the story that FBI agents were going in hot at Mar-a-Lago and were allowed to shoot to kill. Smith said the policy statement within the search documents included deadly force but it was just standard operating procedure.
Except it was at a former president's home. There are no standards for this because this has never happened in U.S. history.
Related: No America, This Is Not, Nor Was It Ever, Normal
Smith called the messaging "grossly misleading" because they planned the raid for when Trump was out of town. It was during the armed raid that the DOJ and FBI staged photos with props, went through Melania Trump's clothes and underwear, and went through son Barron's room, but forgot to tell Trump's attorneys about it until it was already underway. Oops.
Here's how Smith put it to the judge:
“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.
But Sunday night, Trump's lawyers fired back. Here's an excerpt from CNN's coverage:
The special counsel “improperly asks the Court to impose an unconstitutional gag order on President Trump … based on vague and unsupported assertions about threats to law enforcement personnel whose names have been redacted from public filings and whose identities are already subject to a protective order,” defense attorneys wrote.
The attorneys also said that prosecutors, whom they referred to as “self-appointed Thought Police,” were “seeking to condition President Trump’s liberty on his compliance” with their own views.
And here's a sleight-of-hand by Smith in his hope to gag Trump: because Smith was asking for a gag order to be put into the conditions of his pre-trial release, it would put a probation officer in charge of deciding if Trump's speech was too dangerous to be allowed. Judge Cannon would be removed from the process.
Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, who was expecting to be working on his closing arguments in Trump's New York bookkeeping trial throughout Memorial Day weekend, sent Smith an email. "There are rules. You guys violated them.”
Trump's attorneys asked for the judge to find prosecutors in contempt: for failing to confer with them in advance; for making vague and unsupported assertions about threats to law enforcement and redacting their names; and for literally breaking the rules of the court.
Trump's lawyers complained to the judge about a "pattern of unprofessional conduct" by Smith and his deputy, Jay Bratt, throughout the entire process, including altering and jumbling during the raid itself. Indeed, they asked Judge Cannon that, far from granting the gag order, she should sanction prosecutors for breaking the rules again.
The Democrats' lawfare attacks on Trump have already resulted in gag orders in their two cases against him in New York and his J6 Washington, D.C., case. If this gag order is successful, it will be a fourth case.
Trump's bookkeeping trial continues on Tuesday with closing arguments. A battle over the jury instructions is also underway and will be resolved before the jury gets the case.
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