Dave Davies

He wanted to make him attorney general and a whole bevy of –

Career lawyers threatened to resign en masse and shut that down.

This was some amazing stuff.

When the Justice Department investigators were watching all this on television, had they talked to those folks?

Was this news to them?

You know, normally when federal prosecutors and their colleagues in the FBI investigate a big white-collar case, they take their time, they build the facts, you know, they work from the inside to the out of a conspiracy, and they don't worry about time.

In this particular case, the time that it would take mattered a lot.

And, I mean, I just know from covering these things that major white-collar criminal cases take a long, long time to get to trial.

Yeah.

These were experienced prosecutors.

They knew that.

Were they concerned that they were going to get to the point where Donald Trump's burgeoning presidential campaign for a second term was going to run into this trial schedule?

Right.

And of course, Jack Smith was appointed after Donald Trump formally announced his candidacy for a second term.

We need to take another break here.

Let me reintroduce you.

We are speaking with Carol Linning and Aaron Davis, two investigative reporters.

Their new book is Injustice, How Politics and Fear Vanquished America's Justice Department.

We'll continue our conversation after this break.

This is Fresh Air.