Maga loyalist expands investigation into intelligence officials who angered Trump | US politics
A U.S. attorney in Miami loyal to Maga is expanding the investigation into former FBI and intelligence officials who have incurred Donald Trump’s wrath with an investigation into how Russia helped him win in 2016, even as the U.S. justice department suffers from recent court dismissals of indictments by two of the U.S. president’s enemies.
Former prosecutors and legal experts call the Miami-based investigation, which has yielded nearly two dozen subpoenas so far, a “fishing expedition.” The ostensible focus of the investigation is to determine ways to criminally charge former FBI and intelligence officials who have already been investigated and effectively exonerated by two special counsels and a Republican-led Senate panel who conducted sweeping investigations into Russia’s efforts to support Trump in 2016.
The investigation, led by Jason Reding Quiñones, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney for the southern district of Florida who is close to Attorney General Pam Bondi and other key Maga allies, accelerated in November with a series of subpoenas and new prosecutors who will step up what has been called a “massive conspiracy” investigation.
The subpoenas reportedly went to former CIA director John Brennan, who led the 2016 Russia investigation, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia investigation, and former FBI attorney Lisa Page, among others.
Concerns about the direction and tactics of the Miami investigation, which initially appeared to be aimed at Brennan, led to the resignation of two junior prosecutors assigned to the investigation, according to multiple reports.
Michael Bromwich, the former Justice Department inspector general who represented Andrew McCabe, the FBI’s No. 2 and subpoenaed in 2016, is harsh in his assessment of the Miami investigation.
“This investigation has no factual basis. It violates both the Justice Department and the FBI’s standards that require a fact-based estimate. This is a fishing expedition made clear by two previous independent counsel investigations and a congressional investigation led by the current Secretary of State,” he said.
Bromwich added: “The government refused to provide a basis for the location in Florida and was not willing to disclose the legal violations it pursued. This is unprecedented in my more than 40 years of federal criminal practice.”
Other former prosecutors have harsh criticism of Miami’s sprawling investigation.
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said the Russia investigations had already been reviewed and “ended with a whimper.” “The idea that Trump loyalists will now investigate Again It should make us all suspicious of their purpose. “If there was enough evidence to support criminal charges, we would have seen it by now.”
Similarly, Jeffrey Sloman, who previously led the investigation and spent two decades in the U.S. attorney’s office during part of the Obama administration, emphasized: “Our law and our customs prohibit federal prosecutors from using their formidable prosecutorial powers to conduct a grand jury investigation for the sole purpose of eliminating the president’s political enemy.”
Trump has frequently denounced the 2016 Russia investigation as a “witch hunt,” even though special counsel Robert Mueller concluded in his 2019 report that Moscow “extensively and systematically” interfered with the 2016 election to help Trump win; Mueller’s report found no evidence of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Trump’s hostility towards Brennan became clear when Trump reposted an image on Truth Social in January 2023 showing Brennan, Clapper and other former intelligence officials behind bars. The photo featured a thought-provoking caption: “Now that Russian collusion is a proven lie, when will the treason trials begin?”
Under Reding Quiñones, there appears to have been a premium on loyalty to Trump and the hiring of new prosecutors to pursue the Trump-style revenge investigation into the origins of the 2016 Russia investigation; It focuses on a 2017 intelligence assessment in which the Kremlin intervened to help Trump win the election.
Notably, Reding Quiñones was the first US attorney to be confirmed by the Senate in August this year, choosing Bondi to administer the oath of office, breaking the usual practice of chief judges of the southern district of Florida being sworn in by US attorneys in Miami.
At his swearing-in ceremony in August, Reding Quiñones vowed to “restore impartial justice,” a clear blow to the office’s previous mandate.
Before Trump appointed Reding Quiñones as U.S. attorney this year, he served as a federal prosecutor and state judge in the same office.
Some of the investigation’s direction and momentum appears to have been fueled by Reding Quinones and Mike Davis, a right-wing attorney and Trump loyalist with strong ties to Trump’s justice department.
Last month, Davis wrote on social media that “justice has come” with a photo of himself next to Reding Quiñones. Davis reportedly played a role in pushing the justice department to use Florida prosecutors to pursue conspiracy cases against Trump’s enemies.
Davis’ combative legal style developed further during Trump’s first term, as he guided Trump’s Supreme Court nominees through Senate confirmations. Now Davis leads the Article III Project, a right-wing outfit that boasts of helping “fight left-wing legislation to defend the rule of law.”
In March, a few weeks before Trump chose Reding Quiñones for his post in Miami, he and Davis appeared together in a conservative legal conversation on a panel titled “Modern Law and American Democracy.”
Panelists expressed anger over special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump and his views that the justice department has been weaponized under the Biden administration.
During the conversation, Davis suggested that Trump’s justice department should launch a comprehensive investigation that would charge those investigating Trump with a conspiracy to deprive him of his civil rights, according to reports and Davis’ public comments. Such conspiracy charges often involve police misconduct and protecting the civil rights of minorities.
“There must be serious consequences,” Davis told the audience. “This unprecedented law ending the republic must have serious legal, political and financial consequences.”
The Miami investigation grew out of another investigation by a U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania that reportedly focused on Brennan, but was turned over to Reding Quiñones in September, who expanded the probe to include a new grand jury in Fort Pierce, Florida, scheduled to begin in January.
In October, Davis told conservative podcasters that a grand jury would explore whether to bring criminal charges against a group of former officials who he alleged conspired for a decade to harm Trump, from Russia investigations to criminal charges against him for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss and hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
In an interview on the right-wing The Charlie Kirk Show in October, Davis boasted that his “pal” Jason Quiñones moved to empanel a grand jury after Davis “put a lot of pressure” to investigate what he claimed was a conspiracy against Trump.
Separately, Davis told conservative commentator Benny Johnson in October: “I’ve been publicly calling for this for three years. I’m going to make sure these ‘legal Democrats’ go to jail for the next four years of President Trump’s second term.”
In October, Trump called for lawsuits against some former officials who Davis claimed used “law enforcement” against Trump.
“They rigged and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election,” Trump wrote on social media. “These Radical Left Crazies should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!”
Although the statute of limitations generally prevents criminal charges involving the 2017 intelligence assessment, Davis suggested that prosecutors may try to prove that it was part of a much longer conspiracy by federal officials to strip Trump of his rights.
Former prosecutors offer harsh comments about the Miami investigation.
McQuade emphasized that the Miami investigation was akin to “what Ed Martin, head of the DOJ’s ‘weapons working group’, calls ‘name and shame’: that is, publicly smearing people even if a criminal conviction is not possible.” This philosophy violates legal ethics and Justice Department policy, which allows prosecutors to pursue charges only where the evidence is sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction. The statute of limitations alone appears to be a bar to conduct that occurred in 2016. The five-year statute of limitations “There is.”
Sloman said: “According to published reports, two bright young men working in the US attorney’s office in Miami who bravely refused such an assignment recently resigned after expressing reservations about working on such an investigation.
Unfortunately, it seems there are others who are afraid enough to accept this mission. “As a 20-year alumnus of the office, I urge the current leadership to reverse course, end this reported investigation, and restore trust and integrity to this once proud institution.”
The Miami investigation has faced criticism from former prosecutors, while other Justice Department cases to convict two of Trump’s longtime foes – former FBI director James Comey and New York attorney general Letitia James – have been undermined by recent court decisions.
Last month, a judge dismissed criminal indictments against Comey for allegedly lying to Congress and obstructing Congress in 2020, and for James for alleged bank fraud and perjury.
The judge’s decision emphasized that Lindsey Halligan, the Trump-promoted interim U.S. attorney in Eastern Virginia who brought the charges without any prosecutorial experience, was improperly appointed after the senior prosecutor running the office chose not to file charges and resigned under pressure.
Although the Miami investigation is expanding differently than the Virginia cases, legal critics say both exemplify Trump’s strategy of publicly smearing his enemies even if they are not ultimately convicted of crimes.
“It has been clear for months that Trump only cares about the law to the extent that he can use it as a weapon to make the lives of his enemies miserable,” said NYU law professor Stephen Gillers. “A grand jury investigation and trial can do this even if there is no conviction. A conviction would just be the icing on the dessert.”
