Gaetz introduces legislation to prohibit funding for Justice Department's Trump probe

Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced legislation to prohibit federal funding from being given to Special Counsel Jack Smith's probes of former President Donald Trump, as the Florida Republican says the investigation is an example of the government being weaponized.

Gaetz introduced the single-page bill Tuesday just hours after Trump said that the Justice Department informed him that he is a target in its Jan. 6  investigation and that he must report to a grand jury this week. Trump said this "almost always means an [a]rrest and indictment."

The legislation would prohibit any federal funds from going toward Smith's office, which would effectively end the two probes Smith is overseeing into Trump's efforts to challenge the 2020 election and into the former president's alleged mishandling of classified documents. Trump pleaded not guilty last month to 37 charges related to the latter investigation.

"The government is being weaponized to go after President Donald J. Trump. The House of Representatives must defund Jack Smith’s office and end the witch hunt," Gaetz said when announcing his bill Tuesday.

"The power of the purse is not some intermittent thing that we wield every fiscal cycle. It's something that we have to wield day in and day out to achieve victory for our people and to stop this," he also said.

Smith already spent nearly $5.5 million in the first four months of his investigations from November 2022 through March 2023. The Justice Department has not published data about how much money he has spent to date. 

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.