The Justice Department has fired additional lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of President Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The overall number of terminations was not immediately clear but they cut across both the classified documents and election interference prosecutions brought by Smith, and included a handful of prosecutors who were detailed to the probes as well as Justice Department support staff and other non-lawyer personnel who aided them, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel moves that have not been publicly announced.

The firings are part of a broader wave of terminations that have roiled the department for months and that have targeted staff who worked on cases involving Trump and his supporters. In January, the Justice Department said that it had fired more than a dozen prosecutors who worked on prosecutions of Trump, and last month fired at least three prosecutors involved in U.S. Capitol riot criminal cases.

Days ago, Patty Hartman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, whose prosecutors handled the cases against the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol, said in a social media post that she had been handed a letter signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi informing her that she had been fired.

Smith’s team in 2023 brought separate indictments accusing Trump of hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as well as conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Neither case reached trial.

Doctor’s COVID fraud charges dropped

The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away COVID-19 vaccines, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination cards.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction.

Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. The charges were brought when Joe Biden was president.

“Dr. Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so,” Bondi wrote. “He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing. It ends today.”

The trial began Monday in Salt Lake City with jury selection. It was expected to last 15 days.

A federal grand jury on Jan. 11, 2023, returned an indictment against Moore, his Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah Inc., others associated with the clinic and a neighbor of Moore’s. The indictment alleged more than $28,000 of government-provided COVID-19 vaccine doses were destroyed.

They were also accused of providing fraudulently completed vaccination record cards for over 1,900 doses of the vaccine in exchange for either a cash or a donation to a specified charitable organization.

The government also alleged some children were given saline shots, at their parents’ request, so the minors believed they were getting the vaccine.

Russia aims to prevent anti-N. Korea alliance

Russia’s foreign minister on Saturday warned the U.S., South Korea and Japan against forming a security partnership targeting North Korea as he visited his country’s ally for talks on further solidifying their booming military and other cooperation.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke at North Korea’s eastern Wonsan city, where he met the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

Speaking with reporters after a meeting with his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui, Lavrov accused the U.S., South Korea and Japan of what he called their military buildups around North Korea.

“We warn against exploiting these ties to build alliances directed against anyone, including North Korea and, of course, Russia,” he said, according to Russia’s state Tass news agency.

The U.S., South Korea and Japan have been expanding or restoring their trilateral military exercises in response to North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

On Friday, the three countries held a joint air drill involving U.S. nuclear-capable bombers near the Korean Peninsula, as their top military officers met in Seoul and urged North Korea to cease all unlawful activities that threaten regional security.

Fuel to Air India plane was cut off

Fuel control switches for the engines of an Air India flight that crashed last month were moved from the “run” to the “cutoff” position moments before impact, starving both engines of fuel, a preliminary investigation report said early Saturday.

The report, issued by India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, also indicated that both pilots were confused over the change to the switch setting, which caused a loss of engine thrust shortly after takeoff.

The Air India flight — a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner — crashed on June 12 and killed at least 260 people, including 19 on the ground, in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad. Only one passenger survived the crash.

Trump Organization expands into Romania

The Trump Organization plans to expand to Romania, as President Donald Trump’s family deepens its ties in the Balkans and pursues a lineup of new foreign deals.

The company will partner with local real estate developer SDC Imobiliare on Trump Tower Bucharest, according to a statement dated Friday. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Romanian project would follow a plan by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to set up Trump Tower Belgrade in neighboring Serbia.

In contrast to the president’s first term when the company said it would not pursue new foreign deals, the Trump Organization has embraced overseas partnerships since his January inauguration.

Russian barrage kills at least 6 in Ukraine

Russia pounded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles overnight and Saturday as part of a stepped-up bombing campaign that killed at least six people and wounded dozens, officials said.

Two people died and 26 were wounded when Russian forces overnight attacked the Bukovina area in the Chernivtsi region of southwestern Ukraine with four drones and a missile, regional Gov. Ruslan Zaparaniuk said Saturday. He said that the two died from falling drone debris.

Russia fired 597 drones and decoys, along with 26 cruise missiles, into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said.

Two people were killed Saturday morning in a missile strike in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to regional Gov. Serhii Lysak. Two other people were killed Saturday in the Sumy region by a Russian guided bomb, local officials said.

One person was wounded Saturday in a Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s Belgorod region and another in the Kursk region, local officials said.

— From news services