Several current and former Department of Justice and FBI officials have begun preparing to be potentially targeted by President-elect Donald Trump’s loyalists.
Concerns about criminally investigations by the Trump administration reportedly intensified following the president-elect’s nomination of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
Throughout his 2024 presidential bid, Trump and his allies consistently railed against the president-elects numerous enemies and criminal investigations, calling them politically motivated and claiming the DOJ and FBI officials involved deserved to be prosecuted.
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Those at the DOJ and FBI, however, argue that the probes were done by the book, having secured indictments from federal grand juries against Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and 2020 election subversion efforts.
“Everything we did was aboveboard,” one former senior FBI official told NBC News. “But this is a different world.”
While the he said that he does not believe any attempt to prosecute him would be successful, he—and multiple peers—started contacting lawyers in anticipation of potential lengthy legal battles and congressional investigations.
Other officials reportedly expressed confusion about the legal basis for possible prosecution.
“There’s no crime,” a current official told the outlet. “What’s the crime?”
Conservative attorney and Trump ally Mike Davis has argued that special counsel Jack Smith could be prosecuted for conspiracy against rights, a charged levied against Trump by Smith regarding the 2020 election.
Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, dismissed Davis' idea as “absurd.”
“I don’t see any legitimate charge that can be brought against Smith,” he added with the caveat that a prosecutor could investigate an official over a long period to find unrelated violations of federal laws that cover minor offenses.
“If you think about it, a majority of adult Americans have probably violated federal laws, such as smoking marijuana, at some point in their lives,” Somin said.
Regardless of the crime, legal experts argue that Trump’s goal in investigating his investigators is to intimidate those who question his conduct.
“Trump aims to neutralize sources of power that may impede him...,” said Stephen Gillers, an ethics professor at New York University Law School. “He will tolerate no interference when the department’s decisions will benefit Trump and his buddies or when its power can be deployed to retaliate against his enemies.”
In choosing Gaetz, one former DOJ official claimed, the president-elect is “confident that Gaetz will do whatever Trump tells him to do.”
“He needs to be able to control the department, which he can do through a loyal AG beholden to him.” the former official continued.
Gaetz, who was the subject of a federal sex trafficking probe that ended without charges, “understands that he owes everything to Trump, who can protect Gaetz as well through his pardon power.”
