Prosecutors in classified files case to urge judge to bar Trump from inflammatory comments about FBI

FORT PIERCE, Fla. (AP) — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents prosecution of Donald Trump is hearing arguments Monday on whether to bar the former president from public comments that prosecutors say could endanger the lives of FBI agents working on the case.

Special counsel Jack Smith's team says the restrictions are necessary in light of Trump's false comments that the FBI agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 for classified documents were out to kill him and his family. Trump's lawyers say any gag order would improperly silence Trump in the heat of a presidential campaign in which he is the presumptive Republican nominee.

It was not immediately clear when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee whose handling of the case has been closely scrutinized, might rule. Before turning her attention to the limited gag order sought by prosecutors, she is scheduled to hear additional arguments Monday morning related to the Justice Department's appointment and funding of Smith, whose team brought the charges.

The arguments are part of a three-day hearing that began Friday to deal with several of the many unresolved legal issues that have piled up in a case that had been set for trial last month but has been snarled by delays and a plodding pace. Cannon indefinitely postponed the trial, and it's all but guaranteed that it will not take place before the November presidential election.