A recent court filing from the prosecution team in a Trump case currently led by Special Counsel Jack Smith reveals — though only with a broad description — an ongoing investigation by a U.S. Attorney’s office into evident threats targeting a prospective witness in the government’s case.
This criminal case against Trump deals with the ex-president’s handling of classified materials from his time in office, a cache of which was eventually recovered from Trump’s Florida resort Mar-a-Lago. Trump faces criminal charges related to both having the documents at all and alleged obstruction in the course of the government’s outreach and investigations. Trump’s rhetoric, meanwhile, has already long produced concerns of setting up possibilities of serious threats and violence, though the public account from Smith’s team of what a potential witness in the docs case was facing remained sparse on details.
ABC News highlighted the developments. Smith’s team was asking for judicial permission to make a filing under seal, meaning hiding it from view. “The exhibit describes in some detail threats that have been made over social media to a prospective Government witness and the surrounding circumstances, and the fact that those threats are the subject of an ongoing federal investigation being handled by a United States Attorney’s Office,” per the circulated filing.
Trump was already made subject to a gag order, meaning restrictions on his remarks, amid Smith’s other criminal case against him, which deals with the ex-president’s attempts after the last presidential election to stay in power despite losing. Though the bulk of that case was put on hold amid Trump bringing arguments elsewhere claiming wide-reaching legal protections by mere virtue of his time as president, the gag order and related, status quo-covering elements to the case were staying active. The order blocks commentary from the ex-president related to prospective witnesses’ participation in the case. A range of individuals politically opposite Trump have faced threats, including Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis.
