The man who brought two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump wants to testify publicly, as two of his top deputies set up a law firm to take on public corruption issues.

Molly Gaston and J.P. Cooney, both former top deputies to special counsel Jack Smith, launched their own firm this week.Gaston & Cooney PLLC

WASHINGTON — Two years ago, Molly Gaston stepped into the well of a courtroom in the nation’s capital and made history: informing a judge that a federal grand jury had returned a true bill and indicted a former United States president for attempting to overturn his election loss.

Now — nine months after President Donald Trump returned to the White House and his Justice Department fired her and other career prosecutors who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith — Gaston and another of Smith’s top deputies are stepping out on their own.

She and fellow Smith team alum J.P. Cooney rolled out a new law firm this week focused on helping state and local governments fill the void created by the Justice Department’s retreat from public corruption work. Gaston & Cooney PLLC will also represent the targets of criminal and congressional investigations as Trump flexes his ability to use federal law enforcement and his allies in Congress to target his political opponents.

Also this week, Smith’s lawyers informed Congress that he’s ready to re-enter the limelight, telling Trump allies Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, that he’d be happy to testify before Congress. But he requested to do so publicly rather than behind closed doors to help combat the “many mischaracterizations” about his investigations into Trump, his attorneys said.

(snip-a video, tangentially related, on the page)

The public emergence of Smith and two of his top deputies comes as Trump has remade the Justice Department, tearing down the wall between the DOJ and the White House with open calls to go after his opponents; pardoning all participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol whom the department had spent years arresting and prosecuting; and firing scores of nonpolitical DOJ and FBI employees.

Smith gave a rare interview earlier this month, saying that attacks on public servants had an “incalculable” cost to the country. He also made an appearance in a video of DOJ alumni supporting fired employees.

Gaston and Cooney told NBC News that none of this — leaving the Justice Department and the relative anonymity of the life of a federal prosecutor to launch a law firm — was part of the plan. They had both expected to stay on at the Justice Department after Trump took office.

In retrospect, it may have been naive, but Gaston said they joked about getting demoted to work on misdemeanor cases in Superior Court in Washington, the low-level positions where many brand-new federal prosecutors start their careers.

They were fired in January. (Gaston and Cooney are challenging their firings, saying they are illegal and violate long-standing civil service protections.)

They chose not to join a big law firm, several of which have agreed to give free legal services to the Trump administration to avoid being targeted by executive orders, which judges later ruled violated the First Amendment.

Initially, they sought to work with universities to launch academic initiatives focusing on public corruption, with Gaston noting that’s what they spent most of their careers working on and were “really passionate about.” But it didn’t pan out.

“There were a lot of schools that were enthusiastic, but also anxious about working with us because of the environment right now,” Gaston said, adding they were unable to secure funding to launch the project.

Cooney said they want to “try and meet this moment,” which they think “is a particularly challenging one for our country in many respects.”

“Specifically in the area of the cost exacted by public corruption and turning a blind eye to it,” he said, there’s a real need for “independent, conflict-free representation and advocacy across many spectrums.”

The firings and departures of federal employees who worked on cases against Trump or the Jan. 6 prosecutions have been celebrated by many MAGA supporters. Current employees wonder if they’re next on the firing list, and those who departed face daunting challenges, including being targeted on social media, a heightened threat environment and a tough job market, with many employers hesitant to draw the Trump administration’s ire.

The campaign against Smith’s team hasn’t let up since Cooney and Gaston left. The Trump administration, just this month, fired FBI special agents and even administrative staffers who worked with Smith’s office. Gaston called the firing of “model public servants … outrageous” and sad.

“People who load documents into document review platforms were fired for no reason, except that they had worked for — done work for — the special counsel’s office,” Gaston said. “Those were the hardest moments for us in the last nine months.”

Gaston said she has “immense respect” for those still inside the DOJ who continue to follow the facts and the law.

“Career civil servants who are dedicated to doing their jobs without fear or favor — whether it’s judges or career prosecutors or FBI agents, or people who work at HHS and the like — are just now routinely the subject of such vehement personal attacks on social media and otherwise by politicians and public figures who know better,” Cooney said. “It really has no place in a civil society, and we are so inspired by the career civil servants who, under circumstances like that, go to work every day and do their job faithfully under the law and without fear or favor.”

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Jasper Nathaniel joins the program from the occupied West Bank and walks us through the horrific settler violence he survived over the weekend. October 20, 2025.

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https://www.advocate.com/voices/mahmoud-v-taylor

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Protesters in support of LGBTQ+ rights and against book bans demonstrate outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building while the justices heard arguments for the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor in Washington, DC., April 2025

Opinion: In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the justices gave bigotry a permission slip and ruled that parents can “opt out” of LGBTQ-inclusive lessons, further diminishing lessons and practices on inclusivity in civic society, argues Darek M. Ciszek.

Darek M. Ciszek

October 20 2025 6:00 AM EST

The U.S. Supreme Court made a decision earlier this summer that has a significant impact on classrooms nationwide. In their 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the majority completely missed the point as to why LGBTQ-inclusive education matters. By giving parents the option to pull their kids out of lessons that include LGBTQ+ characters or content, the Court prioritized personal religious objections over creating schools where students can learn without feeling invisible.

Justice Alito‘s majority opinion is especially troubling. He treats LGBTQ-inclusive education as if it were some optional “add-on” that schools can easily work around. As a former teacher, I can confidently say that is not how education works, especially when it comes to curriculum and lesson planning. And while Justice Thomas calls LGBTQ-inclusive education “ideological conformity,” he fails to see that most LGBTQ+ adults today grew up in a school system that forced us to conform to a cisgender and straight worldview. Ironically, I’d consider the Court’s narrow view of public education to be ideologically driven.

Let’s be clear about what LGBTQ-inclusive education is and isn’t. When teachers include books like Uncle Bobby’s Wedding in their curriculum, they are not trying to convert anyone’s child or attack anyone’s faith. They are trying to show students that families come in all colors, shapes, and sizes, reflecting our diverse society.

LGBTQ+ people are also part of every community. We have always been a part of human history, and we deserve to be represented in our nation’s schools. The goal is not to change what students believe at home; it is to teach them how to be respectful in a democratic and diverse world. Luckily, in her dissent, Justice Sotomayor got it right when she said that LGBTQ-inclusive education is “designed to foster mutual civility and respect.”

I could not agree more.

But here’s what the Court’s majority really got wrong: they ignored the anti-bullying efforts that motivate many LGBTQ+ inclusive education programs in the first place. According to the latest National School Climate Survey from GLSEN, 68% of American students reported feeling unsafe in school due to their SOGIE (sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression) characteristics.

That is two out of three LGBTQ+ youth.

These aren’t just statistics. These are real children trying to learn while dealing with a school environment that tells them, whether implicitly or explicitly, that their identities or families are somehow wrong or shameful.

When schools include diverse families in their lessons, they are not pushing an agenda. They are teaching kids that being different does not mean bad. They are giving LGBTQ+ students a chance to see themselves reflected in their education and helping other students see and understand those who are different from them.

Research shows inclusive education works. Studies have found that an LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum can improve the social and emotional well-being of LGBTQ+ youth. When kids learn about different types of families early on, they are more likely to treat their classmates with kindness instead of cruelty. In other words, when implemented correctly, LGBTQ-inclusive education can be an essential anti-bullying and student well-being strategy.

For instance, as a result of my doctoral research, I have learned that some schools around the world are starting to address LGBTQ+ bullying head-on, and, not surprisingly, it’s through curriculum and instruction. In Scotland, LGBTQ-inclusive education became required in 2021 across both primary and secondary, and most major subject areas. When I interviewed government staff about their experience implementing the new policy, I learned that they even worked with religious groups to inform the effort. Faith communities could agree that inclusion was important for reducing homophobic bullying, even if they had some religious concerns. Scottish students now learn how homophobic language hurts people and develop the social-emotional skills needed for creating safer schools. It’s not ideological instruction; it’s teaching kids critical peer relationship skills.

Similar to the Scottish experience, the U.S. Supreme Court could have left the door open for education authorities to find a balance that respects both religious families and vulnerable LGBTQ+ kids. Real inclusion programs do not ask anyone to abandon their faith. They ask people to treat others with respect and dignity, a lesson I believe everyone should support in class. Kids can learn that some families have two moms without being told their family is wrong. They can remember that using “gay” as an insult hurts people without abandoning their religious beliefs. Getting to know your neighbor does not go against faith.

Unfortunately for the U.S., the impact of the Court’s decision may be severe and widespread, especially in ideologically conservative states. Instead of dealing with complicated opt-out policies, I fear many school districts will probably remove LGBTQ+ inclusive materials entirely. Unfortunately, it can be easier to bow to political pressures than to fight, especially when faced with potential lawsuits or a loss of school funding. This means LGBTQ+ kids lose representation, and all students miss out on critical lessons in diversity and inclusion.

The Court’s decision also has broader implications beyond the LGBTQ+ community. By way of a new precedent, the case approves a heckler’s veto, allowing parents to claim a religious objection to any educational content they may not align with at home. This is because the majority opinion wasn’t apparent on how opting out of inclusive education would work in practice, or what would even qualify as a personal religious objection. We might start seeing opt-out forms for instruction on topics like human evolution, women’s rights, or civil rights history. Thanks to the Court, there is no line in the sand.

When we remove students from lessons about diverse communities, we fail everyone. But the call for truly inclusive education is not going anywhere. Our kids—all of our kids—deserve better.

Darek M. Ciszek is a PhD Candidate in Education at UCLA with a research focus on curriculum, learning, and social development.

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