Federal prosecutor in Trump probe reprimanded in earlier case for secretly recording defense lawyer

JTN:

A Justice Department prosecutor who helped secure last week’s indictment of former President Donald Trump was publicly reprimanded by a judge in 2009 for “gross negligence” in connection with secretly taping a defense lawyer and an investigator, an agency source has confirmed to Just The News.

The prosecutor, Karen Gilbert, is now serving as a deputy to Special Counsel Jack Smith, who on Thursday issued the 37-count indictment of Trump. 

In the 2009 case, Gilbert was head of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s narcotics division in Miami and was attempting to prosecute Dr. Ali Shaygan for allegedly prescribing medications illegally, court records show.

Gilbert and colleague in the case Sean Cronin launched a witness tampering investigation and got two witnesses to record conversations between Shaygan’s defense lawyer and the investigator, the records show.

However, according to a stinging ruling by U.S. District Judge Alan Gold, the pair failed to get authorization to tape the conversations and did not inform the defense team that the witnesses were “cooperating with the government,” thereby violating discovery obligations. read more