Trump plans an 'immediate' and total purge of DOJ officials investigating him if elected president: report

30 May 2023

The 34-count prosecution that former President Donald Trump is facing from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his legal problems. Trump is also the subject of two federal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and special counsel Jack Smith as well as a Georgia state investigation from Fulton County DA Fani Willis.

All this comes at a time when Trump is the frontrunner in the GOP 2024 presidential primary. If Trump wins the nomination and defeats incumbent President Joe Biden in the general election, he will be back in the White House come January 20, 2025 — legal problems and all.

In an article published by Rolling Stone on May 30, journalists Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley report that Trump, if elected, plans to "immediately" purge the DOJ of officials who have been investigating him — according to "two sources with direct knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it."

"Separately, the twice-impeached former president has been saying, for many months, that on 'Day One' of his potential second term, he wants FBI Director Christopher Wray 'out' of the Bureau, according to another source familiar with the matter and two people close to Trump," Suebsaeng and Rawnsley observe. "It's an ironic turn, given that Trump appointed Wray in 2017….. But in the years since, Trump came to deeply distrust Wray."

Smith and the DOJ have been investigating Trump for his post-2020 election activities and the January 6, 2021 insurrection — and, in a separate probe, for the government documents he was storing at Mar-a-Lago.

"The identities of law enforcement personnel involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation have been a flashpoint between Trump and the Justice Department since the FBI executed a search warrant on the former president's residence in August 2022," Suebsaeng and Rawnsley explain. "Prosecutors unsealed a copy of the search warrant with the names of agents redacted, but the former president posted a copy of the document with the names of two FBI agents involved in the search. The search kicked off an 'unprecedented' number of threats against FBI agents and an attack by an armed Trump supporter on the FBI's Cincinnati field office."

The reporters add, "Trump's latest crusade against the FBI coincides with his plans for a complete remaking of the federal bureaucracy. That includes promises to install extreme loyalists like Jeffrey Clark and Michael Flynn, who aided Trump's anti-democratic efforts to overturn the 2020 election outcome. Trump also has pledged to sign an executive order, dubbed Schedule F, that would make it easier to hire loyalists and fire nonpartisan civil servants."

Rolling Stone's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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