In Donald Trump’s federal criminal case accusing him of the mishandling of classified documents, federal prosecutor Jack Smith is now asking presiding Judge Aileen Cannon for new restrictions on Trump’s public comments after the spread of what Smith deemed a dangerous lie.
In short, that’s the idea that authorities were aiming to assassinate Trump around the time of a federal search of his Florida property Mar-a-Lago amid what became the present case against him. The Trump corner’s claim arises from a routine allowance for the use of deadly force by federal agents in the course of carrying out that raid — a standard inclusion that some have observed is actually sharply limiting of the circumstances in which that kind of force can be used. And, of course, no such force was actually used in the raid, though even the Trump campaign itself pushed the idea of some plot against Donald.
“Smart move by Smith as Judge Cannon won’t be likely to grant the gag order, will show her patent bias, and Smith can then appeal to the 11th Circuit,” former federal prosecutor-turned-legal commentator Andrew Weissmann argued on X (formerly called Twitter).
As elucidated elsewhere, an appeal in the event of Cannon rejecting Smith could involve the special prosecutor seeking her removal from the case by higher-level judicial authorities. “And if she does not do something about this, I think the Special Counsel may use this as the opportunity, to try to get the Eleventh Circuit to get rid of her,” anti-Trump conservative lawyer George Conway said on CNN.
Cannon faced extensive criticism recently for indefinitely delaying Trump’s trial in the classified documents matter, striking the previous scheduling without any immediate replacement.
