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Judge Aileen Cannon has set a new deadline for Donald Trump's response to claims that he is putting FBI lives at risk.
Trump said that the FBI was instructed to use lethal force against him during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Prosecutor Jack Smith has asked Cannon to adjust the former president's bail conditions.
If granted, Trump would be forbidden from making any more claims that the FBI had intended to use lethal force against him when they raided Mar-a-Lago to seize classified documents. That followed the unsealing of an FBI search warrant application that stated agents were trained to use lethal force if necessary.
Such language is standard for search warrant applications and appears on one when FBI agents were seeking to recover presidential papers from President Joe Biden.
Cannon, a Trump appointee, is overseeing the case, in which prosecutor Jack Smith accuses the Republican of illegally retaining classified documents, hoarding them at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and obstructing attempts by federal officials to retrieve them.
Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. He has denied any wrongdoing in the case and has said the documents he retained were personal. Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney and from Smith's office on Monday.
Cannon has already received submissions from prosecutors and Trump's lawyers, and has delayed the bail adjustment request by three weeks while she requests further submissions.
Cannon has already refused Smith's initial request to adjust Trump's bail conditions, claiming the prosecutor went against common attorney courtesy in not conferring with them before filing the motion. She has now given Smith a new chance to make the bail adjustment application.
On Sunday, Cannon entered an order directing Trump to file a response on or before June 14 and Smith to reply by June 21.
Trump said on social media that the FBI agents had been trained by the Biden administration to shoot him. HIs supporters, such as Steve Bannon, repeated such claims, according to a motion Smith filed with Cannon on Friday, May 24.
Writing on his Truth Social account, Trump said that the Department of Justice "AUTHORIZED THE FBI TO USE DEADLY (LETHAL) FORCE." In addition, a Trump campaign email that FBI agents were "authorized to shoot" the former president, claiming Biden was "locked & loaded and ready to take me [Trump] out."
Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial on May 7, citing legal disputes around classified evidence. The judge said there were eight outstanding substantive pending motions for her to rule on and predicted this will take until at least late July.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more