House Republicans on Friday demanded in a letter that special counsel Jack Smith preserve his records in relation to his prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump.
“With President Trump’s decisive victory this week, we are concerned that the Office of Special Counsel may attempt to purge relevant records, communications, and documents responsive to our numerous requests for information,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said in the letter to Smith’s office.
Jordan’s office gave Smith’s team a deadline of Nov. 24 to comply with the request.
The letter, the Republicans said, serves as a “formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials related” to Smith’s cases against Trump and as “an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration” of records and communications.
Smith’s office has not publicly responded to the Republicans’ letter. The Epoch Times contacted the DOJ and Smith’s team for comment on Friday but didn’t receive a reply by publication time.
The DOJ appears to be winding down the two Trump cases following his election victory on Tuesday. A spokesperson for the DOJ told The Epoch Times this week that it has a standing policy not to prosecute presidents.
The agency spokesman directed The Epoch Times this week to a memo saying that a prosecution of a sitting president would “unduly interfere in a direct or formal sense with the conduct of the Presidency,” adding that an impeachment investigation is the only appropriate avenue to deal with a president who is in office.
Meanwhile, Smith on Friday requested the federal judge overseeing Trump’s election-related case to put all pretrial hearings and proceedings on hold. Minutes later, the judge agreed with Smith’s request, which noted the “unprecedented circumstances” with a case targeting the president-elect.
On several occasions, Trump has said that, if elected, he would fire Smith and terminate the proceedings against him. He was charged in Washington with crimes in connection to what prosecutors say was an illegal attempt to overturn the 2020 election, and he was charged in Florida with illegally holding onto classified documents and obstructing an investigation, which led to the FBI search of his residence.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in the Smith cases, accusing the special counsel of acting in a partisan manner. In July, a federal judge dismissed the classified documents case, agreeing with arguments that Smith was not lawfully appointed as special counsel by outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Other than Jordan’s letter, multiple top Republicans and former Attorney General Bill Barr have called on the DOJ and local prosecutors to end their prosecutions of Trump.
The president-elect still faces a sentencing date in New York City after a jury convicted him in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records, a case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office. The judge overseeing the case, Juan Merchan, has postponed the sentencing date multiple times in light of the election.
Trump still faces election-related charges in Fulton County, Georgia, but that case is also on shaky ground.
Earlier this year, a Trump co-defendant submitted court papers revealing that Fulton County’s district attorney was in a romantic relationship with her special prosecutor before a judge ruled in March that she could remain on the case. Months later, Trump’s attorneys appealed the judge’s decision with the Georgia Court of Appeals, which placed the criminal case on hold.
