XPost: alt.politics.nationalism.white, alt.politics.democrats.d, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
XPost: talk.politics.guns
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has fired additional lawyers
and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s
prosecutions of President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar
with the matter.
The overall number of terminations was not immediately clear but they
cut across both the classified documents and election interference
prosecutions brought by Smith, and included a handful of prosecutors who
were detailed to the probes as well as Justice Department support staff
and other non-lawyer personnel who aided them, said the people, who
spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel moves that have not
been publicly announced.
The firings are part of a broader wave of terminations that have roiled
the department for months and that have targeted staff who worked on
cases involving Trump and his supporters. In January, the Justice
Department said that it had fired more than a dozen prosecutors who
worked on prosecutions of Trump, and last month fired at least three prosecutors involved in U.S. Capitol riot criminal cases.
Days ago, Patty Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, whose prosecutors handled the cases against the Trump
supporters who stormed the Capitol, said in a social media post that she
had been handed a letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi informing
her that she had been fired.
Smith’s team in 2023 brought separate indictments accusing Trump of
hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as
well as conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential
election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Neither case reached trial. The Supreme Court significantly narrowed the election interference case in a ruling that said former presidents
enjoyed broad immunity from prosecution for their official acts, and a Trump-appointed judge dismissed the classified documents case by holding
that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was illegal.
Smith ultimately withdrew both cases in November 2024 after Trump’s
victory, citing a Justice Department legal opinion that protects sitting presidents from federal prosecution.
https://apnews.com/article/jack-smith-justice-department-fired-trump-af94503d10143f5464559fb503425f4f
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