Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump pictured left in March at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci), Judge Aileen M. Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight nomination hearing (U.S. Senate via AP).
Twenty-four Republican attorneys general combined Sunday, Father’s Day, to oppose special counsel Jack Smith’s request for a gag order, defending former President Donald Trump’s “colorful rhetoric” and arguing that Truth Social posts about the feds’ search of Mar-a-Lago were not true threats to law enforcement.
Seeing that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has allowed amici curiae, or friends of the court, to submit arguments on other issues in the Espionage Act case, a collection of AGs from nearly half of the states in the country asked the judge for permission to file a brief against Smith’s demand for an “illegal prior restraint” while Trump’s “presidential campaign is in full swing.”
The filing came two days after Trump’s defense lawyers opposed the gag order and compared the special counsel to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (D).
The proposed brief was endorsed by: Alabama AG Steve Marshall; Alaska AG Treg Taylor; Arkansas AG Tim Griffin; Florida AG Ashley Moody; Idaho AG Raul Labrador; Iowa AG Brenna Bird; Indiana AG Todd Rokita; Kansas AG Kris Kobach; Kentucky AG Russell Coleman; Louisiana AG Liz Murrill; Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch; Missouri AG Andrew Bailey; Montana AG Austin Knudsen; Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers; North Dakota AG Drew Wrigley; Ohio AG Dave Yost; Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond; South Carolina AG Alan Wilson; South Dakota AG Marty Jackley; Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti; Texas AG Ken Paxton; Utah AG Sean Reyes; West Virginia AG Patrick Morrissey; and, finally, Wyoming AG Bridget Hill.
Claiming to represent states that “each stand to suffer the harms” which “may affect the election” and the “First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans,” the AGs touted their “unique and important perspectives” as reasons to permit their opposition to Smith’s request.
The special counsel first took issue over Trump’s Truth Social posts on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, claiming that the defendant in the willful retention of national defense information case put law enforcement in “foreseeable danger” with falsehoods about the Mar-a-Lago search, particularly statements that the feds were authorized to assassinate him.
Smith argued that Trump’s posts were “grossly misleading,” “inflammatory” and posed an “imminent danger” to law enforcement officers that could be trial witnesses against him.
The AGs responded Sunday by saying that Smith is trying to “muzzle” Trump as he does the bidding of the Biden administration’s DOJ as presidential campaign season reaches a critical point.
Claiming that Trump was “justified in highlighting that the raid invoked the FBI’s use-of-force policy rather than taking an approach that would not have needed such authorization,” the AGs further argued that Smith cannot show the “colorful rhetoric” Trump employed in his Truth Social posts actually put any officer in danger.
“It is not even clear how such threats could arise given that the identities of the persons involved in the raid are largely not public,” the AGs said.
While the AGs acknowledged that “there are times when a gag order, even of a political candidate, may be justified,” they said this is not one of those times.
“Although President Trump will sometimes use colorful rhetoric to communicate his intent to fight hard for Americans, he has never threatened the law-enforcement officials involved in this case, nor has he invited others to do so,” the proposed brief stated, calling Smith’s demand “presumptively unconstitutional.”
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