WASHINGTON — The judge overseeing Donald Trump's classified documents case in Florida on Tuesday denied prosecutors' request to bar the former president from making public statements that could endanger law enforcement agents participating in the prosecution.
It’s the latest example of bitterness between Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, and prosecutors who have accused the former president of illegally hoarding at his Mar-a-Lago estate classified documents that he took with him after he left the White House in 2021 and then obstructing the FBI’s efforts to get them back. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was referring to the disclosure in a court document that the FBI, during the search in Palm Beach, Florida, followed a standard use-of-force policy that prohibits the use of deadly force except when the officer conducting the search 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.
But prosecutor David Harbach said the situation needed to be addressed urgently, saying in an email to the defense that Trump created a situation that “necessitated a prompt request for relief that could not wait the weekend to file.” They told the judge in their filing late Friday while Trump's lawyers didn't believe there is any “imminent danger,” Trump had continued that day to make false statements"smearing and endangering the agents who executed the search.