Former President Trump's White House lawyer Ty Cobb said Monday that President-elect Trump and his allies have no “legitimate path” to go after Special Counsel Jack Smith's team.
The comments came hours after Mr. Smith announced he was seeking the dismissal of Mr. Trump's election destruction and classified documents case, based on his long-held view that sitting presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office.
“They swore, certainly he swore, and you know, the people involved in the transition team swore revenge against the prosecutors and… the operatives. Of course they did nothing wrong. “No, and nothing really bad happened. There's nothing to go after them,” Cobb told CNN's Erin Burnett.
BestReviews is reader-supported and may earn us an affiliate commission.
Best Prime Day deals of 2024
Cobb added that he believes Trump has a “clear conflict of interest.” That means Trump is likely eligible to call in a special counsel.
“I don't think there's any legitimate way to go after these people based on the facts or the law or without independent counsel,” Cobb said.
President Trump and some allies, including his new attorney general, Pam Bondi, have called for an investigation of prosecutors involved in Smith's case.
“The Department of Justice, the bad prosecutors will be prosecuted,” Bondi said in a 2023 appearance on Fox News.
“During President Trump's last term, the deep state was in the shadows, so these agents would be investigated. But now the spotlight is on them, and they could all be investigated. ” she added.
The decision also follows a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that held the president's core powers are immune from prosecution.
washington post reported earlier this weekTrump said he planned to fire “the entire team that worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith to pursue two federal indictments against the former president.”
Despite Smith's move to dismiss the federal case, Trump still faces two other lawsuits. The first was the New York hush-money case, in which he was found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments made to porn actors during the 2016 election to buy silence over allegations of extramarital affairs. The lawsuit remains stalled after Trump won the election earlier this month. Sentencing was suspended until the end of his second term.
His other lawsuit focuses specifically on efforts by President Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. The case has not yet begun because of pretrial disputes, as Trump's team seeks to force the removal of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), who accused him of misconduct.
