While many Democrats run for office vowing to take on President Donald Trump - one new candidate already has.
A longtime federal prosecutor who worked with former special counsel Jack Smith on the two indictments of President Trump announced on Wednesday a run for Congress in Virginia as a Democrat.
JP Cooney, who was fired from the Justice Department in January of 2025, was Smith’s top deputy in the special counsel’s office and previously served as a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., where he was the chief of the fraud and public corruption section.
In an interview with ABC News, Cooney said he "never envisioned" running for public office, but decided to do so after the past year, saying Republicans had "enabled a really lawless president."
He also said he was galvanized to run after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made what he called "false" statements about the encounter caught on video by witnesses.
"The experience I had as a federal prosecutor standing up to the most powerful people in this country who had broken the law, and holding them accountable, defending the rule of law, protecting the Constitution, puts me in a unique position to bring that perspective, bring those skills, bring that judgment" to Congress, he said.
In his career as a prosecutor, Cooney worked on the conspiracy case against former Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and on the obstruction-related cases against Trump associates Steve Bannon and Roger Stone, who were both pardoned by Trump.
Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison after being convicted of abusing his office in exchange for bribes. |
Smith, who led investigations into Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election and alleged mishandling of classified documents, defended his work before Congress recently, and told lawmakers he would not be "intimidated" by President Trump’s calls for him to be investigated.
Cooney plans to run in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District in a newly drawn House map that would favor Democrats and could help the party flip multiple Republican-held seats in the fall, if it is approved by voters and survives legal challenges.
Cooney said that his friends didn’t know If he was a Republican or Democrat when he told them he was running for Congress.
"I'm proud of that, because I think that it demonstrates the independence with which I conducted my work," he said.
"Throughout my life, throughout my career, my core values have not changed, and in this moment, I'm a Democrat, I'm running proudly as a Democrat, but I can separate this moment and running as a Democrat from the independent, nonpartisan, apolitical work that I conducted for the Justice Department," he said.