Trump's plan for retribution against DOJ prosecutors gets GOP senator's backing: analyst

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to go after the career prosecutors who worked under special counsel Jack Smith in the two federal cases against him — which legal experts have called a gross violation of precedent. But at least one Republican senator is laying the groundwork to cheerlead Trump's move, according to MSNBC's Steve Benen.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) said on last weekend's "Meet the Press," that "First and foremost, the people involved with this should be fired immediately," and that those prosecutors investigated Trump "because they didn’t like his politics," noted Benen. Schmitt did not provide evidence for his statement.

This is somewhat in line with what Trump's team has pushed, Benen wrote, with his incoming press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system, and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise. One of the many reasons that President Trump won the election in a landslide is Americans are sick and tired of seeing their tax dollars spent on targeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s political enemies rather than going after real violent criminals in our streets.”

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Everything in this statement is wrong, Benen continued.

"Members of the special counsel’s team aren’t 'rogue bureaucrats'; they’re law enforcement professionals who pursued highly credible criminal cases based on voluminous evidence. Meanwhile, there’s literally no evidence of 'illegal weaponization of our American justice system' — at least not from the last four years."

Additionally, Trump's win wasn't a "landslide" — just a narrow plurality — and crime has fallen under the Biden administration.

Schmitt's endorsement of the plan, however, is a sign that Republicans in Congress aren't likely to be a check on how Trump interferes with the Justice Department, Benen concluded.

Indeed, he wrote, Schmitt's language shows he "sees law enforcement as the bad guys in this story, and the defendant as the victim."

"Keep this in mind if/when the incoming president starts targeting Smith’s colleagues early next year," he said.