Acting Attorney General James McHenry terminated employment on Monday of more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith‘s team, gutting the office that led two historic criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump.
A DOJ spokesman confirmed the firings to the Washington Examiner but did not disclose the names of those who were let go. McHenry deemed them untrustworthy, the spokesman said.
“Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully,” McHenry wrote to the lawyers.
Smith, who resigned as special counsel before Trump took office, brought criminal charges against Trump in Florida and in Washington, D.C., related to Trump’s handling of classified documents and his allegedly illegal attempts to overturn the 2020 election, respectively.
Smith and his team spent more than two years investigating and prosecuting Trump, but they were forced to terminate both cases after Trump’s election win because of a DOJ policy that prohibits prosecuting sitting presidents.
Smith’s team of prosecutors included veteran career lawyers of the department, such as J.P. Cooney and Jay Bratt. Cooney was among those terminated, as were Molly Gaston, Anne McNamara, and Mary Dohrmann, NBC News reported. Bratt retired before Trump took office.
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This story is developing.