In many ways, the letter that President-elect Donald J. Trump’s defense attorneys sent to the Justice Department this week was evidence of legal and political bombast.

Attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove sought to block special counsel Jack Smith from releasing a report on his investigation into Mr. Trump’s mishandling of classified materials.

They accused Mr. Smith of “unethical” and “inappropriate” behavior in the way he handled the case, using damning language like “dereliction of duty” and accusing the special counsel of “leaking sensitive details to the news media.” ” to have. Mr Blanche and Mr Bove have been carrying out similar attacks against Mr Smith and his team for many months.

But while the tone of the accusations was familiar, the allegations themselves are taking on new weight after Mr. Trump, who has often suggested that Mr. Smith was corrupt and would face consequences if he brought charges against him, won the election.

And the letter’s aggressive stance was all the more tense and notable given that Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove are now poised to take senior positions in Mr. Trump’s Justice Department, where they could soon have a say in evaluation – or even punishment . Mr. Smith and his deputies.

There is no precedent for a situation in which a former president’s defense lawyers go from representing him against the federal government almost overnight to becoming high-ranking officials in a government run by the same client – a client who has regularly signaled that he wants them The Ministry of Justice wants to use it to retaliate against its alleged opponents.

It is less clear whether experienced former prosecutors like Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove would follow the relevant instructions, especially when no evidence was presented that Mr. Smith committed an ethics violation, let alone a criminal offense.

Still, the furious accusations that Mr. Smith abused his prosecutorial powers — or relied on powers he does not have — cannot be ignored: They come from two lawyers who are in the process of running the Justice Department and assuming such powers themselves.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers contend that releasing a final report constitutes unethical behavior by Mr. Smith, and yet it is not clear whether the special counsel could avoid it even if he wanted to.

Pursuant to Department of Justice regulations, special counsels must submit a report to the Attorney General upon completion of their work. In recent years, it has been common for department heads to publicly release reports, although often with redactions, to protect grand jury testimony or confidential materials.

A person close to the Trump team said the new president’s advisers viewed the speed with which Mr. Smith sought to release the report before the start of his new term as a political act of its own. The person noted that it took the Russia investigation’s special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, nearly two years to release a report on whether Mr. Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russians and whether Mr. Trump had obstructed that investigation. The report made no recommendation to prosecute a sitting president, contradicting longstanding Justice Department policy.

Mr. Blanche is Mr. Trump’s choice to be deputy attorney general. This position would give him the authority to decide not only who should be charged, but also issues of departmental discipline, assignments and terminations. Mr. Bove is expected to take over as deputy attorney general, a post that would make him Mr. Blanche’s right-hand man.

The closer they come to assuming these roles, the more their legal work on behalf of their powerful client, Mr. Trump, can be seen both inside and outside the department as an indicator of how they want to run it.

In fact, her letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland could become something of a blueprint for how she and other Justice Department officials might take action against those involved in the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump by reassigning, demoting, or They even wanted to be fired.

Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove did not respond to a message seeking comment. Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s communications director, did not directly address a question about the letter and its authors, but instead said that Mr. Smith should not be allowed to “prepare an unconstitutional, one-sided, falsehood-ridden prank.” He suggested that the Justice Department should push to prevent the report from being released.

A few weeks before the election, Mr. Trump declared that he would fire Mr. Smith in “two seconds” if he were still in office after Inauguration Day, adding the next day that Mr. Smith would be “kicked out of the country.” should . Mr. Smith and many members of his team plan to resign from the department before Mr. Trump or his deputies have a chance to fire them, according to people familiar with their plans.

The Smith team exit process has already begun.

Jay Bratt, a counterintelligence prosecutor and a key member of the classified documents team, retired Friday after 34 years of service. Mr Bratt, 65, played a key role in the early days of the investigation and later emerged as a key member of Mr Smith’s team.

Mr. Trump has long urged the lawyers who represent him to be as aggressive as possible, and Mr. Blanche and Mr. Bove have often heeded that advice. Twice, judges overseeing the cases they handled reprimanded them for apparently going beyond the normal bounds of zealous legal advocacy.

Just this week, Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is scheduled to sentence Mr. Trump on Friday for his 34 felony convictions in Manhattan, rebuked both men in a written order for coming “dangerously close to crossing the line of zealous exposition.” and that use of “rhetoric that has no place in legal briefs.”

In October, Tanya S. Chutkan, the federal judge who handled Mr. Trump’s now-dropped election interference case, accused them of repeatedly “focusing on political rhetoric rather than addressing the legal issues.”

“This focus is not only unappealing and unhelpful to the court,” Judge Chutkan wrote, “but it is also unbecoming of an experienced defense attorney and undermines the judicial process in this case.”

Mr. Smith has said he intends to submit his report on the classified documents case to Mr. Garland and resign from his post before the Trump administration takes office.

In a surprise move, however, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is presiding over the documents case, issued a ruling on Tuesday temporarily blocking the report’s release.

Mr. Smith has said in court filings that his report will consist of two volumes: one for each of the charges he made against the president-elect. Judge Cannon’s order barring publication of the report did not appear to distinguish between the documents case she was overseeing and the election interference case that Judge Chutkan was hearing in Washington.