As Trump wields his power, Jack Smith and his top deputies step back into the spotlight

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Molly Gaston walked into a courtroom in the nation’s capital and made history: She informed a judge that a federal grand jury had returned a real bill and indicted a former president of the United States for trying to overturn his election defeat.

Now — nine months after President Donald Trump returned to the White House and fired him and other career prosecutors who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith from the Justice Department — Gaston and another of Smith’s top deputies are stepping down on their own.

She and her Team Smith colleague JP Cooney launched a new law firm this week aimed at helping state and local governments fill the void created by the Justice Department’s withdrawal from public corruption work. Gaston & Cooney PLLC will also represent the target of criminal and congressional investigations as Trump expands his ability to use federal law enforcement and his allies in Congress to target his political opponents.

Also this week, Smith’s lawyers informed Congress that he was ready to return to the public eye, telling Trump allies Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that he would be happy to testify before Congress. But he asked to do so publicly rather than behind closed doors to help combat the “numerous misrepresentations” surrounding his investigations into Trump, his lawyers said.

The public emergence of Smith and two of his top deputies comes as Trump has overhauled the Justice Department, tearing down the wall between the DOJ and the White House with open calls for going after his opponents; pardon all participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol that the department had spent years arresting and prosecuting; and firing many apolitical DOJ and FBI employees.

Smith gave a rare interview earlier this month, saying attacks on public officials had an “incalculable” cost to the country. He also made an appearance in a video of DOJ alumni supporting the fired employees.

Gaston and Cooney told NBC News that none of this — leaving the Justice Department and the relative anonymity of life as a federal prosecutor to start a law firm — was part of the plan. They both expected to remain at the Justice Department after Trump took office.

In retrospect, it may have been naive, but Gaston said they joked about being demoted to work on misdemeanor cases in Washington Superior Court, the low-level positions where many new federal prosecutors begin their careers.

They were fired in January. (Gaston and Cooney are challenging their firings, saying they are illegal and violate long-standing civil service protections.)

They chose not to join a major law firm, several of which agreed to provide free legal services to the Trump administration to avoid being targeted by executive orders that judges later ruled violated the First Amendment.

Initially, they were looking to work with universities to launch academic initiatives focused on public corruption, with Gaston emphasizing that this is what they spent most of their careers working on and that they were “really passionate about”. But it didn’t come to fruition.

“Many schools were excited, but also eager to work with us because of the current environment,” Gaston said, adding that they were unable to secure the funding needed to launch the project.

Cooney said they wanted to “try to live through this moment,” which they said “is particularly difficult for our country in many ways.”

“Particularly in the area of ​​the cost exacted by public corruption and turning a blind eye to it,” he said, there is a real need for “independent, conflict-free representation and advocacy in many areas.”

The firings and departures of federal employees who worked on cases against Trump or the Jan. 6 lawsuits were celebrated by many MAGA supporters. Current employees are wondering if they are next on the layoff list, and those who have left face daunting challenges, including being targeted on social media, a heightened threat environment and a tough job market, with many employers wary of drawing the ire of the Trump administration.

The campaign against Smith’s team has not stopped since the departure of Cooney and Gaston. This month, the Trump administration fired FBI special agents and even administrative staffers who worked with Smith’s office. Gaston called the firing of “model civil servants…scandalous” and sad.

“People who were uploading documents to document review platforms were fired for no reason except that they had worked for the special prosecutor’s office,” Gaston said. “This has been the most difficult time for us in the last nine months.”

Gaston said she has “tremendous respect” for those still within the DOJ who continue to follow the facts and the law.

“Career public servants who are dedicated to doing their jobs without fear or favor — whether they are judges, career prosecutors, FBI agents, or people who work at HHS and others — are routinely subject to such vociferous personal attacks on social media and otherwise from politicians and public figures who know better,” Cooney said. “This really has no place in a civil society, and we are so inspired by career public servants who, in such circumstances, go to work every day and do their jobs faithfully, according to the law and without fear or favor. »