Two years after rioters stormed the US Capitol, the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal investigation into the effort to block the peaceful transition of power enters a new phase with the special counsel adding two right-hand prosecutors to an experienced team that will ultimately determine whether former President Donald Trump or his allies should face prosecution.
Special counsel Jack Smith has returned to the US after spending the past month working remotely in Europe while recovering from a bicycle accident.
He is adding two longtime associates who have specialized in public corruption cases, according to a person familiar with the matter: Raymond Hulser, the former chief of the DOJ’s public integrity section, and David Harbach, who conducted cases against former Sen. John Edwards and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
The expansion under Smith shores up the office’s ability to examine broad conspiracy cases and determine the avenues of the investigation, another source said. They join a team of more than 20 prosecutors from DOJ, as well as senior advisers brought into the department in recent months, who were already investigating Trump and his allies.
Despite Attorney General Merrick Garland’s assurances that Smith’s appointment won’t slow down the dual Trump-related probes, setting his office up does take time. Smith’s team is still working to find a permanent physical office location but has begun changing over email addresses for staffers who had previously been using their usual Justice Department accounts.
Harbach was seen by CNN getting his bearings in the federal courthouse in DC on Thursday, speaking to another special counsel prosecutor about extremist group cases and briefly sitting in on an ongoing Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy trial.
According to the Justice Department, more than 950 defendants have been arrested for their alleged participation in the January 6, 2021, riot, with more than 500 being found guilty. Four people died in the attack, including rioter Ashli Babbitt who was shot by a Capitol police officer, two members of the crowd who suffered heart attacks, and one who died of an overdose. DOJ says 140 officers were injured that day and five officers died in the months after the riot – one of strokes and four by suicide.
Smith and his new team have inherited the January 6 probe at a crucial juncture, as the public has a better understanding of the lengths the former president and his allies went to try to keep Trump in the Oval Office but also as congressional investigators hit the limits of their powers.
And where the House select committee hit brick walls in its probe – including with recalcitrant witnesses who claimed privileges, or, like Mark Meadows, bailed on cooperating with congressional investigators midway through – DOJ prosecutors now working under Smith will have certain tools to dismantle those barriers. They include ongoing legal proceedings about piercing the shield of confidentially that normally surrounds a president.
The special counsel also has a massive amount of evidence already in-hand that it now needs to comb through, including evidence recently turned over by the House January 6 committee, subpoena documents provided by local officials in key states and discovery collected from lawyers for Trump allies late last year in a flurry of activity, at least some of which has not even been reviewed yet, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
