BREAKING: Trump-Appointed Judge DENIES Gag Order — Rules Motion ‘Lacking In Substance And Professional Courtesy’

L: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon denied Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to gag former President Donald Trump over his false claims President Joe Biden tried to assassinate him with the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

In a paperless order Tuesday morning, Cannon ruled that Smith and his team had not given Trump’s team enough time when he filed his motion on Friday. Cannon wrote:

PAPERLESS ORDER denying without prejudice for lack of meaningful conferral 581 the Special Counsel’s Motion to Modify Conditions of Release. Upon review of the Motion 581 [581-1], Defendant Trump’s procedural opposition 583, and the attached email correspondence between counsel [583-1], the Court finds the Special Counsel’s pro forma “conferral” to be wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy. It should go without saying that meaningful conferral is not a perfunctory exercise. Sufficient time needs to be afforded to permit reasonable evaluation of the requested relief by opposing counsel and to allow for adequate follow-up discussion as necessary about the specific factual and legal basis underlying the motion. This is so even when a party “assume[s]” the opposing party will oppose the proposed motion [583-1], and it applies with additional force when the relief sought — at issue for the first time in this proceeding and raised in a procedurally distinct manner than in cited cases — implicates substantive and/or Constitutional questions. Because the filing of the Special Counsel’s Motion did not adhere to these basic requirements, it is due to be denied without prejudice. Any future, non-emergency motion brought in this case — whether on the topic of release conditions or anything else — shall not be filed absent meaningful, timely, and professional conferral. S.D. Fla. L.R. 88.9, 7.1(a)(3); see ECF No. 28 p. 2; ECF No. 82. Moreover, all certificates of conference going forward shall (1) appear in a separate section at the end of the motion, not embedded in editorialized footnotes; (2) specify, in objective terms, the exact timing, method, and substance of the conferral conducted; and (3) include, if requested by opposing counsel, no more than 200 words verbatim from the opposing side on the subject of conferral, again in objective terms. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in sanctions. In light of this Order, the Court determines to deny without prejudice Defendant Trump’s Motion to Strike and for Sanctions 583 . Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 5/28/2024. (jf01) (Entered: 05/28/2024)

The basis for Trump’s claim is standard language in the raid’s operation order that said agents “may use deadly force only when necessary, that is, when the officer 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.”

Trump has been fundraising on the increasingly fantastical scenario, which originated from a filing by Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Chris Kise that contains a key misquote of the guidance in the operation order.

On Friday evening, Smith submitted his filing demanding Trump be gagged from making such statements in which he wrote that “Predictably and as he certainly intended, others have amplified Trump’s misleading statements, falsely characterizing the inclusion of the entirely standard use of force policy as an effort to ‘assassinate’ Trump.”

He added, “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.”

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