WASHINGTON — Attorneys for former Donald Trump on Monday filed a response to the Justice Department’s request for a protective order in the criminal election interference case against the former president, arguing that the proposed order was “overbroad.”
Trump’s lawyers had a 5 p.m. EDT deadline on Monday to respond to the Justice Department’s proposal. Their answer, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, sought less restrictive rules.
On Aug. 1, a federal grand jury investigating the efforts of Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 election returned a four-count indictment against the former president.
Monday’s 29-page response centered around First Amendment rights.
“The government requests the Court assume the role of censor and impose content-based regulations on President Trump’s political speech that would forbid him from publicly discussing or disclosing all non-public documents produced by the government, including both purportedly sensitive materials,” Trump’s attorneys argued. “This untargeted method offends both the First Amendment, which requires a compelling government interest and narrow tailoring to justify a prior restraint, ... and Rule 16, which ‘places no express limits on the purposes for which discoverable material can be used.’”
JUST IN: Trump has filed his response to the special counsel's motion for a protective order. Read the 29-page response here: https://t.co/wZUv6RZZaJ
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 7, 2023
Trump’s attorneys added that he did not contest the government’s interest in restricting some of the evidence, but added that a “blanket gag order” over all documents was not required.
“Rather, the Court can, and should, limit its protective order to genuinely sensitive materials -- a less restrictive alternative that would satisfy any government interest in confidentiality while preserving the First Amendment rights of President Trump and the public.”
On Friday, prosecutors in the office of special counsel Jack Smith asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to issue a protective order governing the disclosure of discovery material to Trump’s lawyers, The New York Times reported.
The request came after the former president posted several messages on his social media account. The vague, yet strongly worded message, read, in capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”
Prosecutors did not ask for a gag order, according to the newspaper.
Trump’s attorneys had issued a statement that said the message cited in the motion had not been directed toward anyone involved in the case, the Times reported. They added that the former president’s message was “the definition of free speech” and promised to raise First Amendment issues.
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