Following the July dismissal of former President Donald Trump's classified documents case, some members of Special Counsel Jack Smith's team of federal prosecutors have been left with very little to do.

In a clear indication that the case is unlikely to be revived anytime soon, much less go to trial, two of Smith's top prosecutors have left the classified documents team in South Florida and returned to their prior roles at the Justice Department in Washington D.C., Newsmax reported.

Though the dismissal has been appealed and it is possible that the indictment against Trump could eventually be restored, the departure of the two high-profile attorneys suggests that possibility, if it ever comes at all, won't be for some time.

Two top prosecutors gone

The New York Times, citing multiple unnamed sources, reported Wednesday that Special Counsel Smith had lost two top members and veteran prosecutors from his classified documents team -- Julie Edelstein and David Raskin.

Edelstein has returned to her previous role in the DOJ's counterintelligence section while Raskin has resumed his prior position with the DOJ's national security division, per the outlet's sources, and those departures likely won't be the last from Smith's assembled squad.

One main reason for them to leave is that the dismissed indictment is now tied up in the appeals process, which could take months or even years to sort out -- to say nothing about ending entirely if former President Trump wins re-election -- which means there is little if any work for Edelstein or Raskin to do, given that neither prosecutor is an appellate specialist.

Edelstein experienced in counterintelligence and espionage cases

A little more than a year ago, in September 2023, The Washington Post reported on the various known or suspected members of Special Counsel Smith's dual prosecutorial teams -- one in Washington D.C. and the other in South Florida -- that supposedly collectively included more than 40 lawyers and an unknown number of FBI agents and support staffers.

In detailing the South Florida team working on the classified documents case, the Post highlighted the inclusion of Edelstein, who previously worked at DOJ headquarters in D.C. on counterintelligence and espionage cases and had been the lead prosecutor against Reality Winner, a former contractor for the National Security Agency who was convicted of mishandling classified information and was sentenced to five years in prison.

According to one of her colleagues, Edelstein was known for having "encyclopedic knowledge" of all evidence in a given case and the ability to recall and reference previous court filings quickly, which he said "is a real skill that comes with keeping track of everything that goes over to the defense."

"It can sound like bookkeeping," he added, "but when you are up against attorneys who are ready to make accusations against the prosecutors -- and perhaps say things that are untrue -- Julie is exactly the person you would want to get up and calmly state what the facts are and explain why the government’s decisions are correct."

Raskin previously prosecuted terrorists, others who mishandled classified documents

About a year before that report, in October 2022, The Washington Post reported separately that Raskin, a highly experienced veteran prosecutor at the DOJ's national security division, had left his position there and joined the nascent investigation of former President Trump alleged illegal retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, which had just been raided by FBI agents a couple of months earlier.

Raskin, who had worked as a senior federal prosecutor in New York City and Kansas City, Missouri, in addition to D.C., had been a lead prosecutor who won convictions against Al-Qaeda terrorist suspects. While he initially had been tasked to consult investigators probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot of 2021, he was eventually reassigned to help prepare the classified documents case for criminal charges and a trial. His presence on that team predated the appointment of Special Counsel Smith.

Coincidentally enough, just a few weeks before he was tasked with the Trump documents case, Raskin had just won a similar case involving a former FBI analyst convicted of improperly keeping hundreds of highly classified documents at their home.

With Edelstein and Raskin now gone from Smith's classified documents team, it will be interesting to see if the Times' sources are correct and there will be other high-profile departures from the squad now that the dismissed case is mired in the appeals process and unlikely to go to trial for months or years, if ever.