'Dirty cop': Trump names 10 new targets in his retribution campaign

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally to mark his 100th day in office, at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan, U.S., April 29, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

President Donald Trump isn't showing any signs of letting up in his goal of having his administration hound his political opponents, and just named 10 new potential defendants.

In a Wednesday post to his Truth Social account, the president accused former FBI special agent Walter Giardina of being a "DIRTY COP" and demanded he be "investigated, immediately." He additionally called for investigations into former DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith and his counselor Jay Bratt, along with prosecutor Thomas Windom, who worked on Smith's team.

Trump went on to demand investigations into former Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco (who served in former President Joe Biden's DOJ), former assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Weissmann, former U.S. ambassador Norm Eisen, former FBI Director Christopher Wray, former Attorney General Merrick Garland. Trump also called for an investigation into the anti-corruption group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), whose board Eisen chairs.

"They are a disgrace to our Nation. Thank you for your attention to this matter!" Trump said, ending the post with his signature catchphrase.

Wray is the only Trump appointee to be named as a potential defendant: After Trump put him in charge of the FBI in 2017, Biden kept him in his role, only for him to resign early on in Trump's second term after the president repeatedly criticized his leadership. Trump's targeting of Garland is likely due to Garland overseeing the DOJ during Trump's two federal criminal investigations for alleged election interference in 2020, and alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left office in 2021. However, Garland was known for being excessively cautious in prosecuting a former president, and reportedly made DOJ investigators wait for months before even issuing subpoenas. MSNBC reporter Carol Leonnig recalled in her new book that Garland took great pains to avoid any accusation of allowing politics to influence the DOJ's work.

"[I]t took more than a year after Trump was defeated for the Justice Department to convene a grand jury to hear evidence in the alleged criminal scheme by Trump to use fake electors to overturn the results of the 2020 election," MSNBC reported in its summary of Leonnig's book. "And even after that grand jury was launched in January 2022, the FBI debated another 10 weeks before approving a memo formally opening that investigation, further delaying the gathering of evidence. After much ‘hand wringing’ by FBI Director Chris Wray’s leadership team, the memo named the Trump campaign, but not Trump, as a subject of the investigation."

Several of Trump's new targets worked on former DOJ special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In addition to Giardina's work on the Mueller investigation, Politico reported in August that he was also involved in the arrest of Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro, who served four months in prison last year for refusing to comply with the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. Giardina was fired along with several other top FBI officials who were involved in prosecutions of January 6 defendants.

Prior to her time as deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco was Mueller's chief of staff, when he served as FBI director. Weissmann was also one of Mueller's lead prosecutors during the Russia probe, and was general counsel of the FBI when Mueller led the bureau.

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