{"id":66149,"date":"2026-02-12T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/former-jack-smith-deputy-involved-in-prosecuting-trump-announces-run-for-office\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T09:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T14:55:10","slug":"former-jack-smith-deputy-involved-in-prosecuting-trump-announces-run-for-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/former-jack-smith-deputy-involved-in-prosecuting-trump-announces-run-for-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Jack Smith deputy involved in prosecuting Trump announces run for office"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>JP Cooney, who worked on the criminal prosecutions of President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/person\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump <\/a>with former special counsel Jack Smith, has mounted a congressional bid in Virginia as a Democrat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was fired by Donald Trump&#8217;s Department of Justice because of my work to prosecute him. But I won&#8217;t let Trump \u2013 or anyone \u2013 stop me from serving. I&#8217;m J.P. Cooney, and I&#8217;m running for Congress in Virginia&#8217;s 7th District,&#8221; he wrote in a Wednesday <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cooneycongress\/status\/2021683567927939437\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">post<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital reached out to Cooney&#8217;s campaign and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/politics\/executive\/white-house\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">White House<\/a> for comment on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/fired-trump-prosecutors-launch-new-washington-firm-say-battle-government-corruption\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>FIRED TRUMP PROSECUTORS LAUNCH NEW WASHINGTON FIRM THEY SAY WILL BATTLE GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cooney&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/j-p-cooney-43958a355\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">LinkedIn profile<\/a> states, &#8220;As Principal Deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, Cooney was a lead prosecutor in both criminal prosecutions of President Trump for obstruction of justice and conspiracy.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Smith praised Cooney in a statement reported by The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/11\/us\/politics\/cooney-trump-prosecutor-congress-virginia.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/jack-smith-says-trump-willfully-broke-law-blasts-doj-retribution-second-term\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>JACK SMITH SAYS TRUMP \u2018WILLFULLY\u2019 BROKE THE LAW, BLASTS DOJ \u2018RETRIBUTION\u2019 IN SECOND TERM<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019ve known J.P. for a long time and I think the world of him as a person and as a public servant,&#8221; Smith noted, according to the outlet. &#8220;He\u2019s a man of integrity who has committed his career to upholding the rule of law, and he\u2019s the model of who our country needs in public service.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cooney aims to run in a district that does not actually exist yet, the Times noted, explaining that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/us-regions\/southeast\/virginia\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Virginia&#8217;s<\/a> 7th Congressional District would be altered under a redistricting push by Democrats. The plan would need to surmount legal challenges and clear a ballot referendum.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/top-5-moments-from-jack-smiths-testimony-capitol-hill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>TOP 5 MOMENTS FROM JACK SMITH&#8217;S TESTIMONY ON CAPITOL HILL<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Never has there been a Congress that has been such a weak and ineffective check on a president\u2019s abuses of power,&#8221; Cooney said, according to the Times. &#8220;I lie awake every night worrying that Donald Trump does not have the best interests of our country in mind, and that\u2019s a seismic shift in American leadership and politics.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JP Cooney, who worked on the criminal prosecutions of President Donald Trump with former special counsel Jack Smith, has mounted a congressional bid in Virginia as a Democrat. &#8220;I was fired by Donald Trump&#8217;s Department of Justice because of my work to prosecute him. But I won&#8217;t let Trump \u2013 or anyone \u2013 stop me &#8230; <a title=\"Former Jack Smith deputy involved in prosecuting Trump announces run for office\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/former-jack-smith-deputy-involved-in-prosecuting-trump-announces-run-for-office\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Former Jack Smith deputy involved in prosecuting Trump announces run for office\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}