James Trusty, a lawyer for former President Donald Trump, alleged a top lawyer in the Department of Justice's national security division “extorted” a witnesses’ lawyer to try and earn their cooperation in the ongoing special counsel probe.  

In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins Thursday, Trusty said he was unsure whether anyone was indicted alongside the former president but had a “theory that some of the outrageous misconduct may have affected the outcome in some other case.” 

“Over the last 24 hours, it has become public that members of the Department of Justice led by Jay Bratt… apparently along with five other people in his presence from DOJ, extorted a very well respected, very intelligent lawyer from Washington, DC,” Trusty said of Bratt, a Justice Department lawyer who Trusty called “ a pivotal figure in this investigation.” 

The allegation of wrongdoing has been raised by several allies of the former president, but there is not yet any public evidence backing the claim. The Department of Justice has not commented on the allegations.

Though he did not provide evidence to back up the claim, Trusty said the defense lawyer wrote a sworn letter about the incident to a federal judge.

He added that Trump’s defense team would also seek text messages or emails between other prosecutors in the room with Bratt during the alleged event to see “just how far-ranging this criminal activity was by prosecutors.”

Trusty alleged that Bratt told an unnamed defense lawyer that if that lawyer wants to become a judge, “you have to flip your guy to cooperate against the president of the United States.” 

“Think of the irony, once again, you've got prosecutors saying, we're going after this guy because of obstruction, that's their theoretical distinction from Delaware, while they literally obstructed justice,” Trusty alleged. “They literally tampered with a witness in the fall of 2022.