President Donald Trump has fired a dozen officials who worked with special counsel Jack Smith and a a high-ranking Trump-appointed prosecutor is poised to give fresh scrutiny to the Justice Department’s decision to slap hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters with felony obstruction charges in connection with the Capitol attack, according to reports.
Prosecutors who brought the cases to court – which included charges against some of the most violent offenders – were asked by email Monday “to turn over files, documents, notes, emails and other information related to the cases,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Acting U.S. attorney Ed Martin labeled the decision to pursue obstruction charges as a failure and described his probe as a "special project," the report said.
The move comes as the Justice Department fires more than a dozen officials who worked on special counsel Jack Smith's cases against Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, Fox News and CNN reported Monday.
The development also comes seven months after the Supreme Court delivered a win to MAGA rioters when justices ruled that prosecutors who charged defendants with obstructing or impeding an official proceeding must show that they tampered with physical evidence to meet the criteria met by the statute.
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Still, some prosecutors inside the U.S. attorney’s office considered Martin’s probe “as an opening salvo in the Trump administration’s stated aim of investigating the Jan. 6 investigators," people familiar with the inquiry told the Journal.
“Department officials, both career employees and Biden appointees, have repeatedly insisted their Jan. 6 prosecutions weren’t politically motivated,” the Journal noted. “Defendants accused of the obstruction offense also faced other charges, but the allegation was crucial in elevating the seriousness of cases and the amount of potential prison time.”
The Justice Department did not immediately comment on the report.
Trump last week issued blanket pardons to over 1,500 Capitol rioters – which the Journal pointed out was “virtually all” defendants involved in the attack.
