Congressional Republicans are starting to push back on Joe Biden weaponizing the Justice Department to meddle in the 2024 presidential election.
Anti-Trump special counsel Jack Smith sits squarely in the sights of House Republicans.
Matt Gaetz hit Jack Smith with some bad news that Democrats are going to hate.
After Jack Smith slapped Donald Trump with a politically motivated 37-count indictment over a document dispute with a partisan librarian, congressional Republicans began the process of exerting their power of the purse to try and rein in Smith’s crusade against Trump.
Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) sent a letter to Smith demanding Smith provide Congress with a roster of the prosecutors working under him on the anti-Trump witch hunt.
Gaetz wrote that “this simple staff list cannot be withheld from Congress or the public on the basis of attenuated and entirely fantastic privacy concerns.”
Republicans want to know who is working for Smith due to the political nature of the case and the fact that Smith is prosecuting Donald Trump on behalf of Joe Biden, the sitting president and Trump’s likely opponent in 2024.
Biden already said he would use whatever means at his disposal to stop Trump from ever serving as president again.
“We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by, if we, if he does run. I’m making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next President again,” Biden declared.
As head of the executive branch, one of the powers Biden wields under the Constitution is overseeing federal law enforcement.
And Biden clearly weaponized the Department of Justice and the FBI to make good on his threat that Trump will never sit in the Oval Office again.
Gaetz wants to hold Smith accountable for carrying out Biden’s wish and in his letter pointed to Karen Gilbert’s presence on the Smith team.
Gilbert donated $2,000 to Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
Accusations of prosecutorial misconduct are also swirling around Smith’s prosecution of Trump.
Prosecutor Jay Bratt allegedly threatened Stanley Woodward – attorney for Trump’s co-defendant Walt Nauta – with a judgeship he applied for unless Woodward pressured Nauta to flip on Trump.
Trump attorney Timothy Parlatore also said he witnessed 45 acts of misconduct in the grand jury room as prosecutors illegally tried to pierce attorney-client privilege and then used the fact that Trump’s attorneys would not violate that privilege as evidence to the grand jury that Trump was covering up his guilt.
Here Gilbert’s presence again looms large.
In 2009 Gilbert resigned as head of the narcotics section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida as the Department of Justice apologized for alleged acts of misconduct committed by Gilbert.
Gaetz warned Smith that if Congress did not like what it found it would flex its constitutional power of the purse and defund his witch hunt against Trump.
“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 continued.
“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,” Gaetz concluded.