Background: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump attends a news conference with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., Friday, April 12, 2024, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)/ Aileen M. Cannon speaks remotely during a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight nomination hearing to be U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on July 29, 2020, in Washington. (U.S. Senate via AP)
Judge Aileen Cannon apparently got tired of non-parties trying to intervene on issues in the Mar-a-Lago case, as she sent 24 Republican attorneys general and their proposed brief in support of Donald Trump packing on Monday.
In a paperless order, the day after the AGs sought her leave to file a brief, the judge got right to the point without immediately elaborating on the why of the rejection:
PAPERLESS ORDER denying 623 Motion for Leave to File Brief as Amicus Curiae in Opposition to Special Counsel’s Motion to Modify Conditions of Release 592. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 6/17/2024. (jf01) (Entered: 06/17/2024)
As Law&Crime reported earlier in the day, Alabama AG Steve Marshall, Alaska AG Treg Taylor, Arkansas AG Tim Griffin, Florida AG Ashley Moody, Idaho AG Raul Labrador, Iowa AG Brenna Bird, Indiana AG Todd Rokita, Kansas AG Kris Kobach, Kentucky AG Russell Coleman, Louisiana AG Liz Murrill, Mississippi AG Lynn Fitch, Missouri AG Andrew Bailey, Montana AG Austin Knudsen, Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers, North Dakota AG Drew Wrigley, Ohio AG Dave Yost, Oklahoma AG Gentner Drummond, South Carolina AG Alan Wilson, South Dakota AG Marty Jackley, Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti, Texas AG Ken Paxton, Utah AG Sean Reyes, West Virginia AG Patrick Morrissey, and Wyoming AG Bridget Hill all combined in an attempt to make the case that Smith’s gag order request runs afoul of the First Amendment as “presumptively unconstitutional.”
The special counsel has since the eve of Memorial Day weekend tried to modify Trump’s bond conditions due to the his “grossly misleading” and “inflammatory” Truth Social posts, which Smith said put law enforcement and possible trial witnesses in “foreseeable danger” with falsehoods about the Mar-a-Lago search, specifically claims that the feds were authorized to use “deadly (lethal) force.”
“Those statements create a grossly misleading impression about the intentions and conduct of federal law enforcement agents—falsely suggesting that they were complicit in a plot to assassinate him—and expose those agents, some of whom will be witnesses at trial, to the risk of threats, violence, and harassment,” Smith said in May.
The coalition of AGs said Trump’s posts amounted to “colorful rhetoric” during the presidential campaign, not true threats to law enforcement that could be subject to a “prior restraint.”
The proposed brief meant to support a filing by Trump’s defense lawyers in opposition to the gag order request claimed to represent states that “each stand to suffer the harms” which “may affect the election” and the “First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans” who have a right to hear the presidential candidate speak and push back against prosecutors in the heat of campaign season.
But unfortunately for the AGs, the judge evidently wasn’t interested in going down the amici curiae road this time.
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