The US Justice Department fired more than a dozen officials who worked on investigations that former Special Counsel Jack Smith led into Donald Trump’s actions following the president’s 2020 election loss.
Acting Attorney General James McHenry removed the officials because he didn’t believe those staff members could be trusted to implement the president’s agenda due to their roles in the investigations, a department spokesperson said in a statement.
Smith conducted two investigations into Trump’s actions, both of which resulted in indictments. One case alleged that Trump illegally tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The other alleged that Trump mishandled classified documents and obstructed justice after leaving the White House in 2021.
Trump and his allies blasted Smith’s investigations, often describing them and other actions they disliked as examples of how the former Biden administration “weaponized” the government against conservatives.
One of the first executive orders that Trump issued after taking office last week was to root out individuals who he perceived to be political enemies.
It was not immediately clear which officials on Smith’s team had been fired.
Smith dropped both cases against Trump after he was reelected president, citing a Justice Department policy that prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents.
The firings are in addition to officials who were notified last week that they’re being reassigned to work on Trump’s top priorities, especially immigration enforcement, according to a person who asked to remain anonymous to speak about personnel matters.
The firings were earlier reported by Fox News.
Meanwhile, interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin has launched an internal review of the use of certain felony obstruction charges in prosecutions of people who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to a person familiar with that move.
Martin was a vocal critic of the Jan. 6 prosecutions and an advocate for defendants before he was appointed to lead the DC office that had overseen that effort over the past four years. Trump signed a mass clemency order for the more than 1,500 people charged in the Capitol attack on his first day in office, pardoning nearly everyone who was convicted and ordering pending cases dismissed.
A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. Martin’s announcement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
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