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Jack Smith and his squad are reportedly lawyering up: ‘My how the tables have turned’

December 28, 2024 | | Print Article

President Joe Biden’s Justice Department was hardly bucking concerns of lawfare as members of Jack Smith’s prosecution team made preparations for the second Trump administration.

The lead-up to the election of President-elect Donald Trump had not only included a myriad of legal battles for the GOP leader but also the buildup of the notion that an attempt to weed out bad actors and hold them accountable for any potential wrongdoing was somehow retaliatory.

With only a few weeks remaining before the second inauguration of Trump, Rolling Stone continued that narrative as it reported how the former special counsel’s team had begun lawyering up and scouring their communications for potential “anti-Trump bias.”

“Donald Trump was elected to a second term on a promise to exact his ‘retribution.’ So it’s no wonder that federal investigators and others who worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office are taking the president-elect at his word,” noted the magazine as the federal cases against Trump dissolved.

Citing familiar sources, the report indicated, “several attorneys and staffers who were on the special counsel’s Justice Department team, or had done work for its criminal investigations into Trump, have already sought legal counsel or retained personal lawyers — in case the former and now future president and his incoming administration follow through on his desire to probe or even prosecute his enemies.”

After referencing Trump’s remark on how “my retribution is going to be success” from his debate with Biden, Rolling Stone continued:

“One of the sources with knowledge of the situation tells Rolling Stone that multiple people who worked with Smith and his core team have preemptively reviewed their private and professional communications, to make sure they hadn’t written anything that could be subpoenaed, publicly revealed, and used against them to paint a narrative of alleged misconduct or supposed anti-Trump bias.”

“Some federal investigators, including more junior staff, have talked to attorneys and legal groups about possible ways a rejuvenated Trump Justice Department could try to make their lives hell, what precautionary measures they should take, and even how to avoid going bankrupt if the revenge probes come in full force, the sources add.”

 

Concerns had even led one investigator to reportedly wonder at how to protect the assets of their spouse were criminal charges to be brought.

Smith’s team wasn’t the only ones said to be lawyering up as a previous report had indicated members of the Justice Department and FBI had similarly showcased their concern about what may come during the second Trump administration.

Meanwhile, as the president-elect had reiterated his stance that, “Retribution will be through success,” in an interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker, his nominee to head the FBI, Kash Patel, had told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, “The people need to know that their FBI has been restored by knowing full well what they did to unlawfully surveil them.”

“The people need to know that there’s been a de-weaponization, a defanging of the Department of Justice, and their houses of worship will no longer be raided, but they need to be shown the documents that said this was the reasoning they weaponized justice,” he went on. “And that, in my opinion, is how Congress can most importantly secure the trust or re-secure the trust of these agencies and departments.”

Still, users on social media drew their own conclusions about the prosecutors seeking legal counsel.

Kevin Haggerty
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