Rep. Matt Gaetz on Tuesday demanded that the Justice Department release a list of the staff assigned to the left-wing special counsel pursuing former President Donald after revealing one prosecutor donated to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020.
The Fort Walton Beach Republican sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland seeking “all staff rosters, phone lists, or similar records, within the custody or control of the Department of Justice, depicting all employees hired by or detailed to the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith.”
Gaetz wants the list to be made public after indicating that one of Smith’s prosecutors investigating Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents had given to Biden’s 2020 campaign and was accused of misconduct in 2009, Fox News noted.
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Gaetz argued there was no reason why this “simple staff list” could be withheld from Congress or the public “on the basis of attenuated and entirely fantastic privacy concerns.”
Gaetz noted in the letter that one of Smith’s team, Karen Gilbert, resigned in 2009 after leading the narcotics section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami after alleged misconduct, something that led the Justice Department to issue an apology at the time.
The letter shows that the department also had to pay a $600,000 settlement.
Fox News noted that Gilbert quit after being accused of eavesdropping on recorded phone conversations between witnesses and the defense lawyer in a drug case.
Fox News also reported that Gilbert gave more than $2,000 to Biden’s campaign and former President Barack Obama.
Besides Gilbert’s misconduct, Trump’s campaign has pointed out that Smith, as the leader of the Justice Department’s public integrity unit, played an “instrumental” role in a prominent Obama administration scandal, as the IRS was accused of targeting conservative nonprofit groups.
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Gaetz threatened to push Congress to defund Smith’s office if the list was not made available.
“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 his letter, Gaetz also pointed out that 27 electronic devices used by the Democrats on former Special Counsel Robery Mueller’s team were “unlawfully wiped clean of records,” thus Garland should use extra caution in protecting records.
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