Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is asking the Justice Department (DOJ) to provide all of the documents about any internal review of J.P. Cooney to begin an investigation into the deputy of special counsel Jack Smith on the prosecution on January 6.
The letter to the DOJ, which comes the day after the influential chair demanded information from the daughter of the New York judge overseeing Trump’s hush money case, represents yet another extension of Jordan’s investigations into those looking into the former president.
The request, which The Hill got from the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), is reminiscent of an earlier attempt to obtain data from the office regarding the lead prosecutor for the Mar-a-Lago case.
The opening of a fresh line of inquiry from Jordan coincides with the publication of a report by the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General, which reviewed the sentence imposed on Trump associate Roger Stone. The probe was prompted by a whistleblower who claimed that illegal political influence may have been used to reduce the recommended sentence. Trump later granted Stone a pardon.
The prosecution of Stone, who was found guilty of making false statements and tampering with witnesses in addition to hindering a congressional inquiry into Trump, included Cooney, who was the head of the fraud and public corruption division (FPC) at the time.
The main emphasis of the watchdog’s findings was former Attorney General Bill Barr, and it concluded that prosecutors had not been improperly pressured politically, even after an internal disagreement about how aggressively to propose Stone’s sentence.
However, the examination also includes Cooney and other prosecutors. It emphasizes that Cooney’s worries about politicization were “not unreasonable,” despite the fact that the investigation finds that Cooney’s sharing of those sentiments with subordinates was “not well considered.”
Jordan focuses on Cooney’s discussions with the prosecution over the case, claiming that he has presented an “unsubstantiated conspiracy theory” regarding his hesitancy regarding the sentence.
“It is imperative that the Department operates with a high level of professionalism and integrity in all its prosecutions. The role of a prosecutor is to seek justice, not to advance unsupported and politically motivated conspiracy theories,” Jordan wrote.
The report claims that when Barr and interim U.S. attorney Timothy Shea discussed Stone’s sentence, the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia had already held “extensive discussions” about it and decided that a sentence that fell outside the federal guidelines range would be suitable.
Shea did, however, eventually approve the prosecutors’ memo to be filed, which recommended a sentence that was “consistent with” the guidelines range. Evidence from the DOJ inspector general investigation showed that Barr “immediately” suggested the memo needed to be “fixed” after learning it contradicted what he and Shea had previously discussed. This was just hours before Trump criticized the original recommendation on social media as “very horrible and unfair.
When recommending a sentence to the court, prosecutors employ a sophisticated algorithm that considers several aspects of the defendant’s background and the offenses they have committed.
Barr was found not guilty by the study, but it also said that the person who first sparked the investigation, a whistleblower, “was not unreasonable” in thinking they had been under political pressure to change the sentencing memo.
Aaron Zelinsky, the whistleblower, had expressed his worries to Cooney, who seemed to agree.
“Based on his experience in other matters, Stone’s relationship with then President Trump, and the recent appointment of Shea, who the FPC Chief understood by reputation to be ‘a good friend of the Attorney General,’ the FPC Chief believed ‘that this was not going to be an internal U.S. Attorney’s Office decision,’ and he worried about political motivations affecting the ultimate sentencing recommendation,” the report states, referring to Cooney by an abbreviation for his then job title.
Cooney’s attorney criticized the report, saying it could discourage internal discussions about potential DOJ leader misconduct.
The FPC Chief’s counsel stated that the FPC Chief’s statements were not entirely speculative but instead were informed by his experience as a prosecutor in public corruption cases, his role as ‘guardian’ of the Fraud and Public Corruption Section’s sentencing policy, and the circumstances of Stone’s relationship to the President and Barr’s appointment of Shea as Interim U.S. Attorney. The FPC Chief’s counsel also stated that our conclusion about the FPC Chief’s speculative statements would inappropriately chill future Department discussions and expressions of concern about the improper politicization of sensitive cases,” the report stated.
The report then reiterates, “We do not find that these concerns were unreasonable given the information known to them at the time.”
In addition to the charges involving Trump and Stone, Cooney is a career prosecutor who has worked on other high-profile cases, including as the prosecution of Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) in 2015.
Jordan’s letter requests papers from the OPR as well as a briefing.
“In light of serious allegations of professional misconduct levied against another one of Mr. Smith’s team of attorneys, we again write to ask what steps the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is taking to examine these facts and uphold the Department’s commitment to fair and impartial justice,” Jordan wrote.
