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WASHINGTON — Lawyers and pro-democracy advocates are in the early stages of building a nationwide network of specialists aimed at defending and protecting people who may be targeted for retribution once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, according to multiple people involved in the effort.
The sprawling initiative is intended to go far beyond legal assistance for those potentially subjected to criminal or civil investigations in a new Trump administration.
Those working to create the infrastructure said that in addition to lawyers, they are recruiting accountants to help people who may find their taxes under audit, employment experts to advise those who could be fired or reassigned without cause, public relations professionals to assist anyone whose reputations might be tarnished by accusations and even psychologists to help potential targets manage the stress that comes with being in the federal government’s crosshairs.
The services would be free, underwritten by contributions to nonprofit groups steering the effort or through web-based donation sites, those involved said.
“It’s necessary because we’re seeing threats of the improper use of government and investigative power like we haven’t seen in modern times in our country,” said Norm Eisen, a co-founder of the State Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit group that offers pro bono legal services, who is assisting the effort. “The pro bono bar and nonprofit legal organizations need to be ready to provide strong support to those who are targeted unfairly.”
The structure is still taking shape, most likely as a loose-knit blend of new and existing nonprofit groups. A person familiar with the planning described a push to start a group that would offer security and public relations assistance to current or former officials facing what they believe to be retaliatory action.
An incoming president doesn’t normally spark that level of foreboding. But Trump has made no secret that he feels he has been wronged, and he has suggested his perceived political enemies should pay a price. Over the years he has singled out judges, prosecutors, lawmakers, journalists, governors and state election officials who he says have failed in their jobs.
When he takes office again, Trump will preside over a vast law enforcement apparatus capable of leaving those who’ve crossed him bankrupt, imprisoned or both, people involved in the effort to try to protect them said. Fending off such investigations can be financially ruinous, even if defendants escape punishment. A legal defense can quickly cross the six-figure mark.
In a recent interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Trump name-checked the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, saying members should be jailed.
Moderator Kristen Welker asked Trump whether his choice for FBI director, Kash Patel, would pursue investigations into Trump’s political enemies.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said.
When Welker pressed whether he wanted to see that happen, Trump said: “If they were crooked, if they did something wrong, if they have broken the law, probably. They went after me. You know, they went after me, and I did nothing wrong.”
Mark Zaid, a private national security attorney who has been recruiting people for the initiative, said in an interview: “We don’t know what to expect other than we listen to his promises. And there’s not a great track record with keeping promises, but when it comes to retribution and retaliation, he seems to keep them more often than he breaks them.”
One way to short-circuit a potential investigation is for the sitting president, Joe Biden, to pre-emptively pardon those who might face scrutiny. Biden gave a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter, covering any offense he may have committed over the past 10 years, effectively shielding him from the incoming administration.
NBC News reached out to two dozen people who have been mentioned by Trump or his allies as potential targets for investigation. About half said they don’t want pre-emptive pardons because they’ve done nothing wrong. Others are uncertain or said they would accept pardons.
People close to Rod Rosenstein, a deputy attorney general in the first Trump administration, and Robert Hur, the former special counsel who declined to prosecute Biden for his handling of classified documents, said neither wants a pardon.
Two sources familiar with the matter said Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who brought a pair of indictments against Trump after he left office in 2021, has privately made it clear he doesn’t want a pardon.
Smith is confident that he has done nothing wrong and that any effort to prosecute him would result in vindication, they said. Others have said publicly that they don’t want pre-emptive pardons, including former CIA Director John Brennan and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who as a House member led the first impeachment trial against Trump.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the chair of the Jan. 6 committee, has said he would accept a pardon from Biden. A spokesman for the vice chair, former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“If he offers it to me — or other members of the committee — I think I would accept it,” Thompson said in a CNN interview last week.
So would Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump White House press secretary who wrote a book criticizing her former boss and spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August.
Asked about a potential pardon from Biden, Grisham wrote in an email message: “I have not heard that he is considering one for me, but I would not turn it down.”
A former national security official said he was sufficiently worried about Trump’s return to power that he had been “seriously thinking about leaving the country.”
After he visited a foreign country and checked homes to rent, he “decided on reflection I didn’t want to do that because that gives the appearance of guilt.”
If Trump appointees were to launch groundless investigations merely to avenge him, they’d face serious obstacles, legal experts said.
Career FBI agents know they would be violating their own policies if they focused their fearsome investigatory powers on targets without good reasons. If they did so knowingly and for corrupt reasons, they could be committing a crime.
Justice Department lawyers who participated in baseless criminal probes could face discipline by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and by their state bar associations.
A network of legal allies will most likely not deter the Trump administration from targeting critics, but it could make it harder for the future White House, said Rosa Brooks, a former Defense Department official who is now at Georgetown Law.
“To whatever extent Trump and his inner circle may think these are going to be easy targets, I don’t think they will be easy targets, because there will be resources in place to ensure that they have really robust legal defenses against politically motivated investigations and prosecutions,” Brooks said.
Peter Nicholas is a senior White House reporter for NBC News.
Carol E. Lee is the Washington managing editor.
Megan Lebowitz is a politics reporter for NBC News.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for NBC News, based in Washington.
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