DOJ Wants Names of Jack Smith’s Staff to Be Kept a Secret: Judicial Watch

Judicial Watch called DOJ claims that the roster should be kept secret ‘plainly insufficient.’

(Left) Special Counsel Jack Smith delivers remarks in Washington on Aug. 1, 2023. (Right) Former President Donald Trump attends his trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York City on Dec. 7, 2023. Drew Angerer, David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal court to keep the names of Trump special prosecutor Jack Smith’s staff a secret, according to a disclosure revealed by Judicial Watch on Wednesday.

Judicial Watch, a conservative-leaning group that has filed numerous Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuits, said that it made a FOIA request to the DOJ for “staff rosters, phone lists, or similar records depicting all employees hired by or detailed to [sic] office of Special Counsel Jack Smith,” which was rejected by the DOJ in 2022. Months later, it filed a lawsuit against the department, the group said.

It revealed Tuesday that the DOJ ultimately noted that it had staff rosters related to Judicial Watch’s request, but it said it wouldn’t release them to the public due to a “dearth of FOIA public interest.” The rosters will instead be withheld under law enforcement and privacy guidelines.

In a court filing on Monday to the U.S. District of Columbia Court, Judicial Watch wrote that the DOJ has argued that “disclosing the more-than-one-year-old rosters could reasonably be expected to interfere” with Mr. Smith’s investigation.

In a new court filing submitted on Monday to the U.S. District of Columbia Court, it stated the DOJ argued that “disclosing the more-than-one-year-old rosters could reasonably be expected to interfere” with the Special Counsel’s work and may lead to “threats and harassment.” That argument was rejected by Judicial Watch, which wrote that the DOJ “does not address how disclosure of the more-than-one-year-old rosters would reveal anything not already publicly known about the scope, nature, and direction” of the case.

“It also ignores the fact that the names of at least 23 [special counsel’s office] staffers are readily available from public sources,“ the court motion adds, ”yet the public availability of these names and in some instances email addresses and a cell phone number does not seem to have had any discernible impact on the functioning of the [special counsel’s office].”

The Epoch Times contacted the DOJ for comment on Thursday.

“Its prosecution of the former president and the two other individuals certainly appears to be proceeding apace, and Defendant has neither claimed nor demonstrated otherwise,” Judicial Watch’s lawyers wrote, adding that DOJ claims that the roster should be kept a secret are “plainly insufficient to satisfy its burden of proving that its withholdings are lawful.”

The latest motion also included a declaration with the names of 23 individuals who are allegedly working under Mr. Smith’s team who were identified using court filings. Four other staffers were found via public media reports, it said.

Due to the high-profile nature of the special counsel’s investigations, which have led to indictments against former President Donald Trump, Judicial Watch’s chief Tom Fitton wrote in a news release that “the American people have the right to know about just who is working on his unprecedented and politicized anti-Trump investigation.”

“Given the scandalous revelations about the Fani Willis prosecution team targeting Trump, it is especially urgent Americans know just who the top people on Jack Smith’s staff are,” Mr. Fitton added, referring to a court motion that accused Ms. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, having engaged in a relationship with her Trump special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, which is now playing out in a Georgia courtroom.

A report from CNN in 2022, citing anonymous sources, claimed that Mr. Smith’s team at the time was about double the size of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that was targeting mostly discredited allegations that President Trump colluded with the Russian government in 2016. At the time, the report claimed that at least 20 prosecutors were working under Mr. Smith, although the DOJ has never corroborated those claims in public.

A 2023 Washington Post article, also citing anonymous sources, wrote that “at least” 40 lawyers as well as FBI agents and support staff are working under Mr. Smith. The Post article included the alleged names of some of Mr. Smith’s team, including Harvey Eisenberg, a retired assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland; Thomas Windom, a prosecutor from the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland; Molly Gaston, who had investigated former FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe; and Raymond Hulser, who was involved in a case against former Trump White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

The special counsel’s team has indicted former President Trump on separate occasions last year, accusing him of illegally trying to overturn the 2020 election and for illegally retaining classified documents after he left the White House. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying they’re part of a plot to persecute him as he is running for re-election in 2024’s presidential election.

In the election case, it was put on hold by a federal judge after his attorneys launched an appeal on grounds that he has presidential immunity from prosecution. Several days ago, he submitted an emergency application to the U.S. Supreme Court, which later ordered Mr. Smith to respond in seven days. The special prosecutor’s lawyers urged the high court to reject the former president’s claims.