Special counsel Jack Smith provided a raft of new evidence to District Judge Aileen Cannon on Friday that former President Donald Trump needs to be placed under a gag order in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case — and specifically, that his conspiracy theories and attacks on law enforcement have led to racist threats against a judge overseeing another of his cases.
Smith moved for the gag order from Cannon, a right-wing judge appointed by Trump who has been accused of repeatedly tilting the trial in the former president’s favor, after Trump and his allies began pushing a groundless conspiracy theory that the FBI’s boilerplate deadly force guidelines on the search warrant for his country club was really a green light to assassinate him. Prosecutors have expressed fear that Trump supporters could go after FBI agents in retaliation for this perceived threat.
And it wouldn’t be the first time, wrote Smith in his filing, because District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s separate election conspiracy trial in Washington, D.C., has been on the receiving end of this herself.
ALSO READ: How The Onion’s founding editor finds humor in the dismal age of Trump
“Three days after the indictment in the election case, and one day after Trump’s initial appearance, Trump posted, ‘IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!'” wrote Smith. “The following day, one of Trump’s supporters called the chambers of Judge Tanya Chutkan and said, ‘Hey you stupid slave n****r,’ and then ‘threatened to kill anyone who went after President Trump.’ The caller went on to say, ‘If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly, b-tch. . . . You will be targeted personally, publicly, your family, all of it.'”
Trump also targeted Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over his half-a-billion-dollar civil fraud case in New York, and called Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who secured Trump’s felony conviction for falsifying business records, a “racist,” “animal,” and “degenerate psychopath” — and both of them received a flurry of threats as well.
“Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly targeted public servants with vitriolic attacks, resulting in a torrent of death threats, doxing, swatting, and other forms of harassment,” concluded Smith in the filing. “When he recently decided to falsely accuse the law enforcement agents involved in this case with taking part in a plan to kill him and his family, he knowingly exposed them to similar treatment. The Court should modify his conditions of release to prohibit similar conduct moving forward.”
Cannon, who has routinely clashed with Smith’s prosecutors in hearings, has currently put the classified documents trial on hold indefinitely, all but guaranteeing it cannot be heard until after the November election.
