July 12 (UPI) — Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday fired nine former members of former special counsel Jack Smith’s team that was tasked with prosecuting President Donald Trump.
Friday’s firings include two federal prosecutors and seven others who assisted Smith’s failed efforts to charge and convict Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, his handling of classified documents and other alleged offenses, The New York Times reported.
Friday’s firings raised to at least 20 the number of Justice Department employees who lost their jobs for participating in the effort to prosecute Trump.
In addition to the two prosecutors, the others who were fired fired on Friday helped to manage Smith’s office, provided paralegal services, oversaw financial records and conducted information security.
Earlier firings included some support staff, U.S. marshals, litigation assistants and others who were not directly related to Smith’s efforts to prosecute Trump, ABC News reported.
The firings have occurred in batches, similar to those on Friday, and often cite Article II of the Constitution, which defines presidential powers.
Smith on Jan. 11 resigned from the DOJ after completing his work and submitted a final confidential report on the two cases arising from the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the FBI’s raid of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort in search of classified documents.
A subsequent Senate Judiciary Committee found Smith had withheld relevant impeachment documents related to one of his cases against Trump that involved electors.
Smith knowingly used information generated by an “anti-Trump FBI agent acting in violation of FBI protocol,” the Judiciary Committee reported on Feb. 12.
“Jack Smith and his merry band of DOJ partisans weaponized the justice system to put President Trump and his defense team at an unfair disadvantage,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said of the committee report.
“Smith’s cases against Trump were never about fairness,” Grassley said. “They were always about vengeance and aimed at destroying a political opponent.”