U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon admonished special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday and said future failure on his part to comply with her requirements in the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump in Florida could result in sanctions.
At issue is the Friday night request — ahead of a holiday weekend — made by Smith's team that Cannon impose a gag order on Donald Trump from making public comments about the case.
Cannon denied Smith's request Tuesday.
"The Court finds the Special Counsel's pro forma 'conferral' [with the defense] to be wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy," wrote Cannon. "It should go without saying that meaningful conferral is not a perfunctory exercise."
Cannon also denied the Monday request from Trump's legal team that she impose sanctions on Smith for his filing, one they say was "unconstitutional censorship" and "bad-faith behavior, plain and simple. The misconduct by the Special Counsel's Office is even more worthy of sanctions in light of the context," they wrote in Monday's filing.
Cannon did take aim at Smith for his claim of urgency with the filing Friday but on a "non-emergency" basis. She also instructed Smith to confer with Trump's legal team before filing any future request and rebuked him for not presenting the Trump team's response neutrally.
"Failure to comply with these requirements may result in sanctions," Cannon wrote in the brief order Tuesday morning, according to Politico. Cannon denied the request without prejudice, meaning prosecutors could file it again.
Smith argued the urgency was necessary to deter Trump from making "intentionally false and inflammatory statements" akin to his assertions last week that the Justice Department had authorization "to shoot me" and that federal agents were "locked & loaded ready to take me out & put my family in danger" in the FBI search of his home for the documents in August 2022. Trump was not home at the time.
Cannon on Tuesday called Smith's request "wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy."
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 counts in the classified documents case, 31 of which accuse him of willful retention of national defense information.
Cannon last week heard defense arguments on a motion to dismiss the case. She has not set a date for trial since postponing the original May 20 start.