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Salon
Salon
Politics
Samaa Khullar

Trump attacks special counsel's wife

Former U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the podium for a campaign rally at Legacy Sports USA on October 09, 2022 in Mesa, Arizona. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump raged online after finding out that the wife of the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland is a Democratic donor who was involved in a documentary about former first lady Michelle Obama. 

Justice Department career prosecutor Jack Smith was appointed by Garland to oversee investigations into Trump with the apparent goal of shielding the department from accusations of partiality.

Katy Chevigny, Smith's wife, was listed as a producer on "Becoming," the former first lady's 2020 documentary. She also donated $2,000 to President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign, according to FEC records. 

Trump took to Truth Social to rant about Chevigny and Smith, attaching screenshots of her Tweets supporting the Democratic Party and accusing the Department of Justice of being biased in their investigation

"This is just a small amount of information from the wife of the hard-line Radical Left Special Counsel (prosecutor), an acolyte of Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama," he wrote on Tuesday night.

Eric Trump joined his father on the conservative social media website, attaching a screenshot of Chevigny's producer credit on the Wikipedia page for "Becoming" as proof of a supposed vendetta against the former president.  

"The wife of the Special Counsel Biden chose to investigate @realDonaldTrump (his likely opponent in 2024) reportedly produced the Michelle Obama documentary," he wrote. "Yes America, you are reading this correctly."

Conservatives are up in arms over Chevigny's Democratic ties, claiming that Biden is using the Justice Department as a political weapon against Trump, though there are no federal laws that restrict spouses of federal law enforcement agents, prosecutors or other officials from political donations or campaign activity. 

"You just can't make this stuff up," tweeted Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who infamously likened those who stormed the capitol on Jan. 6 to tourists. "America cannot stand with a corrupt, two-tiered justice system."

Former Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich added on Twitter: "No wonder Jack Smith accepted this special assignment…The swamp is hard at work!"

"You would think that if the stated purpose to avoid any type of concern about bias were sincere, then they would at least check to see whether or not when you shake the family tree of the special counsel, any virulent Trump haters, Never Trumpers, Biden supporters fall out," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said in an interview with Steve Bannon on Tuesday, 

Notably, many conservatives did not express the same indignation when Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote to Wisconsin and Arizona lawmakers to overturn the results of the 2020 elections and begged Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows in text messages to not concede. 

The former president is currently in the middle of two separate investigations by the Justice Department: one regarding his involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and another into his keeping classified records from the White House in his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving office. 

The Trump Organization, and several Trump family members, are also involved in a civil case involving tax fraud launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump continues to claim that the various charges brought against him in state and federal court are simply a witch-hunt perpetrated by his political enemies.

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