DOJ classified documents case prosecutor retires ahead of Trump inauguration

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Tue Jan 7, 2025, 06:30 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: USA Today

Published 5:31 p.m. ET Jan. 6, 2025 | Updated 5:32 p.m. ET Jan. 6, 2025


WASHINGTON – A senior Justice Department prosecutor who led the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents has resigned. Jay Bratt, 65, led the investigation overseen by special counsel Jack Smith into documents Trump from the White House when he left office in January 2021.

“I have left the Department of Justice as of January 3, 2025,” Bratt said in an automated email response on his Justice Department personal account. Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr confirmed to USA TODAY that Bratt had retired after spending 34 years at DOJ.

For a time, many legal observers had regarded the classified documents case as the most perilous of all the legal threats and prosecutions of the former president. A Trump-appointed judge in Florida later dismissed the case, and the Justice Department dropped its appeals after Trump won election in November, citing a policy against prosecuting sitting presidents.

A former DOJ colleague said top Justice Department officials held a retirement party for Bratt last Friday afternoon at DOJ headquarters. The colleague, who is familiar with Bratt's thinking, said his decision to retire was based, at least in part, on that fact that the classified documents case that he worked on for years no longer exists. "If the case were still proceeding, would he be retired? Probably not," the former colleague said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss Bratt's decision. "But it’s gone, and he's 65 and he said, 'I think I'm ready.'"

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2025/01/06/doj-prosecutor-jay-bratt-resigns-trump/77486155007/

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. A big loss. His shoes will take years to fill.

Not that there will be any plans to do that.

Jay I. Bratt
U.S. Department of Justice
Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, The National Security Division

Washington, DC

Biography
Jay Bratt is the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) of the National Security Division, where he oversees all of CES’ operations. Mr. Bratt is also CES’ Principal Deputy Chief, and he was previously CES’ Deputy Chief for Export Control and Sanctions, with responsibility for reviewing and approving all export control and sanctions prosecutions the Department of Justice brought. He previously served as the Deputy Chief of the National Security Section in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. At the U. S. Attorney’s Office, he prosecuted a wide variety of Espionage Act, export enforcement, and counterterrorism matters. Mr. Bratt has also served as the National Security Counselor to the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Deputy Director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, and Chief of the Litigation Section in the Office of Intelligence at the Department of Justice, where he oversaw requests for the use of information obtained through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in connection with judicial and other proceedings. Before that, Mr. Bratt had many years of experience as a line prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and within the Department of Justice. Mr. Bratt is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University.