Setback for special counsel Jack Smith as Aileen Cannon denies motion filed after Trump falsely claimed FBI was ready to kill him
The judge handling Donald Trump’s classified documents case has rejected a request by prosecutors to impose a gag order on the former president over his false claims that FBI officers were prepared to shoot him when they raided his Mar-e-Lago estate.
The ruling, by Florida federal district judge Aileen Cannon, is the latest in a series of setbacks for the special counsel, Jack Smith, who has spearheaded the prosecution into Trump’s alleged mishandling of documents from his time in the White House.
Cannon said she was denying the ruling because prosecutors had failed to engage in “meaningful conferral” with Trump’s defense team.
“The court finds the special counsel’s pro forma ‘conferral’ to be wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy,” she wrote. “It should go without saying that meaningful conferral is not a perfunctory exercise.”
She said Smith’s motion was being denied “without prejudice”, allowing him to file it again.
Smith submitted a request to Cannon last Friday to bar Trump from statements that “pose a significant risk to law enforcement officers involved in the prosecution”.
