Rep. Matt Gaetz has questioned why one of the lead prosecutors in Special Counsel Jack E. Smith, Karen E. Gilbert, has a past of donating to top Democrats. Gaetz alleges Gilbert has donated to Former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden, and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
In a letter to Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, Gaetz called out Gilbert’s questionable donations, demanded the full roster of staff working for Smith be exposed, and threatened to take congressional action and defund Smith’s office.
“While there are innumerable valid legislative purposes for this request, it should be obvious that doing due diligence in vetting an office that has apparently done no vetting of its own personnel, or worse, might affirmatively be seeking to staff with sanctioned lawyers and partisan hatchet-men (and women), is an entirely appropriate purpose and one small reason I am requesting this information,” Gaetz wrote in the letter.
“The 118th Congress has procedural tools in place to allow for targeted recission of funds from components or subcomponents of agencies that are not operating in the public interest,” he added.
On Monday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced from the House Floor she would be taking action to defund Smith’s office. “Today, I’d like to announce that I’m writing an appropriations rider to defund Jack Smith, special counsel, his office, and the investigation,” Greene said.
“This is a weaponized government attempt to take down the top political enemy and leading presidential candidate of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” she added.
On Tuesday, during a speech from his Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, 45th President and leading 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden as the “most corrupt president in history.”
“Hillary Clinton broke the law and she didn’t get indicted. Joe Biden broke the law — and in many other ways we’re finding out — and so far has not gotten indicted. I did everything right and they indicted me,” Trump said.
Trump pleaded not guilty on all 37 fraudulent counts relating to Trump supposedly “mishandling” classified information. Thirty-one counts are related to the Espionage Act. The final 38th count is related to Trump’s aide, Walt Nauta.
Trump overflowed the area surrounding a downtown federal courthouse in Miami, Florida, where he is scheduled to be arraigned.
Miami police were prepared — expecting crowds ranging from 5,000 to 50,000 people.
Before heading to the courthouse, Trump wrote, “ONE OF THE SADDEST DAYS IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY. WE ARE A NATION IN DECLINE!!!”
On Thursday, President Trump announced the Biden Administration informed him he had been indicted in the documents case and summoned to appear at a Federal Courthouse in Miami, Florida on Tuesday.
“The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is ‘secured’ by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time,” Trump wrote.
“I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM,” Trump added.
“I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN,” Trump continued.
“This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America. We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again,” Trump wrote.
On Monday at 10 a.m., Trump’s attorneys, John Rowley, James Trusty, and Lindsey Halligan, were at the Department of Justice after requesting a meeting with top federal law enforcement officials, according to a CBS News report.
Trump’s lawyers stayed at the Department of Justice for “just under two hours,” and Attorney General Merrick Garland did not attend the meeting.
“Trump’s legal team is frustrated with how Justice Department officials have handled attorney-client matters in recent months and would likely raise their concerns on this front during Monday’s meeting, in particular, prosecutors’ discussions of related issues in front of the grand jury,” CBS News added.
In an op-ed by former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz on Substack, he concludes that a “[c]riminal indictment of former president has no legitimate basis.”
“The bottom line is that if Mr. Trump or his lawyers allege — even without his testifying — that he declassified the documents, a criminal charge of unauthorized possession of classified documents will be difficult to prove. That doesn’t mean that a prosecutor could not get a grand jury to indict this particular ham sandwich. It does mean that it’s unlikely that a conviction against Mr. Trump would be sustainable,” Dershowitz writes.
“Based on what we know, we believe that there is no legitimate basis for a criminal indictment of Mr. Trump based on the material that was found at Mar-a-Lago,” Dershowitz concludes.