Prosecutors seek to bar Trump in classified files case from public statements endangering law enforcement

Federal prosecutors on Friday asked the judge overseeing the classified documents case against Donald Trump to bar the former president from public statements that 'pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents' participating in the prosecution.

Federal prosecutors on Friday asked the judge overseeing the classified documents case against Donald Trump to bar the former president from public statements that "pose a significant, imminent, and foreseeable danger to law enforcement agents" participating in the prosecution.

The request to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon follows a false claim by Trump earlier this week that the FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 were "authorized to shoot me" and were "locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger."

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee was referring to the disclosure in a court document that the FBI, during the search, 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."

The policy is routine and meant to limit the use of force during searches. Prosecutors noted that the search was intentionally conducted when Trump and his family were away and was coordinated with the Secret Service. No force was used.

Prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith's team said in court papers late Friday that Trump's statements falsely suggesting that federal agents "were complicit in a plot to assassinate him" expose law enforcement -- some of whom prosecutors noted will be called as witnesses at his trial -- "Trump's repeated mischaracterization of these facts in widely distributed messages as an attempt to kill him, his family, and Secret Service agents has endangered law enforcement officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case and threatened the integrity of these proceedings," prosecutors told Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

"A restriction prohibiting future similar statements does not restrict legitimate speech," they said.

Defence lawyers have objected to the government's motion, prosecutors said. An attorney for Trump didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment Friday night.