Late Friday, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a new motion stating that the former president may have “potentially” violated his terms of release.
Recently, Smith filed a gag order request against former President Donald Trump, claiming he has a history of “repeated, inflammatory public statements” against his critics. On September 29, 2023, Smith added to the gag order request over a now-deleted video of the former President on X (formerly Twitter).
The video was deleted on X. However, several media outlets published it.
On September 25, former President Donald Trump stopped by a gun shop in South Carolina. During his visit, he was shown a Glock handgun that had his image and signature on it.
“I want to buy one,” Trump said in a video posted by his spokesperson, Steven Cheung.
The deleted post added the claim that “President Trump purchases a Glock in South Carolina!”
After the video was deleted, Cheung clarified that Trump was admiring the gun did not purchase it.
In his latest filing, Smith wrote that the former President’s behavior should not be allowed despite the retraction.
“The defendant 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,” read the filing Friday. “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.”
Now, if Trump had purchased the gun there would be a paper trail plus a background check. If there weren’t, that would be a whole new problem, not to mention really stupid.
Smith also wrote, “The defendant should not be permitted to obtain the benefits of his incendiary public statements and then avoid accountability by having others—whose messages he knows will receive markedly less attention than his own—feign retraction.”
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan is scheduled to hold a hearing regarding the motion on October 16.
