Prosecutors in special counsel Jack Smith’s office cited former President Donald Trump’s incendiary language, including that the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, would have been executed for treason, as further evidence of the need to impose a gag order in the former president’s federal criminal case in Washington, D.C., where he faces charges of election interference.
In a filing made public on Friday, senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston argued that Trump had unleashed “a sustained campaign of prejudicial public statements” against witnesses, prosecutors and others in the case. The filing cites numerous recent statements by the former president, including his accusation, made in a Truth Social post last week, that Milley had committed treason by conspiring with China against his presidency. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!” Trump wrote.
Milley, a likely witness in the Washington, D.C. case and who has publicly criticized the president on several occasions, denied Trump’s charge of treason, and said last week that he has taken security precautions to protect himself and his family.
“No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed,” Gaston wrote in Friday’s filing. “This defendant should not be, either.”
The filing also references an incident at a gun store in Summerville, South Carolina early last week, when Trump declared he wanted to purchase a Glock pistol. The former president’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung posted on social media: “President Trump buys a @GLOCKInc in South Carolina!” He soon deleted the post and claimed Trump “did not purchase or take possession of the firearm.”
In Friday’s filing, prosecutors addressed the incident. Trump “either purchased a gun in violation of the law and his conditions of release, or seeks to benefit from his supporters’ mistaken belief that he did so,” they wrote. “It would be a separate federal crime, and thus a violation of the defendant’s conditions of release, for him to purchase a gun while this felony indictment is pending.”
Smith’s office first asked for a gag order in a filing made public on September 15. The request cited many of Trump’s statements, including a Truth Social post he made just a day after his arraignment, in which he vowed, “If you come after me, I’m coming after you.” “We’re gonna have a little fun with that, I think,” the GOP front-runner said during a speech the same day, referring menacingly to the request.
The latest filing comes before an October 16 hearing in which federal judge Tanya Chutkan will decide whether to impose a limited gag order on the former president. Last week, Chutkan, who has presided over a number of civil cases related to January 6, denied Trump’s legal team’s request that she recuse herself from the case.
Trump’s lawyers responded to the gag order request on Tuesday, describing it as an attempt to “muzzle” his free speech during the presidential campaign. Prosecutors addressed this argument on Friday. The order, Gaston wrote, “would in no way hinder the defendant’s ability to campaign and publicly maintain his innocence. All it would limit is the defendant’s use of his candidacy as a cover for making prejudicial public statements about this case.”
Trump’s defense, the filing added, “makes no attempt to address most of the factual record” that prosecutors submitted regarding his repeated and escalating attacks on witnesses, prosecutors, and others involved in the case. “That is because he cannot explain away the obvious intent and well-known effect of his words.”