(Reuters) – U.S. special counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal prosecution of Donald Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and for mishandling classified documents, has resigned, as the Republican president-elect prepares to return to the White House. .
Smith resigned from the Justice Department on Friday, according to a filing Saturday with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, asking her to lift a court order she issued blocking the release of his final report.
Notice of Smith’s resignation appeared in a footnote in the filing, which said the special prosecutor had completed his work, submitted his final confidential report on Jan. 7 and “severed” from the Justice Department on Jan. 10 .
A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith brought two of the four criminal cases Trump faced after leaving office, but saw them end after a Trump-appointed judge in Florida dismissed one and the U.S. Supreme Court — with three justices appointed by Trump — found that former presidents have complete immunity from prosecution for official acts. Neither case has gone to trial.
After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election, Smith dropped both cases, citing a long-standing Justice Department rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. In asking the courts to dismiss the charges, Smith’s team defended the merits of the cases they had brought, signaling only that Trump’s imminent return to the White House made them untenable.
Smith’s departure is another marker of the collapse of the criminal prosecution against Trump, which could end without any legal consequences for the new president and has sparked a backlash that has helped fuel his political comeback.
Smith’s resignation from the Justice Department was expected. Trump, who has frequently called Smith “deranged,” had said he would fire him immediately after taking office on January 20, and suggested he might retaliate against Smith and others who investigated him once he returns to power.
In 2023, Trump became the first sitting US president to face criminal prosecution, first in New York, where he was accused of trying to conceal a hush money payment to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign. Smith’s accusations followed, accusing Trump of illegally retaining classified documents after leaving office and of trying to overturn his 2020 defeat, a campaign that sparked the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Georgia prosecutors also accused Trump of his efforts to overturn his election defeat in that state.
Trump claimed political motivation
Trump has denied any wrongdoing and called the lawsuits politically motivated attempts to damage his campaign. He raised millions of dollars in campaign contributions through his court appearances and used those cases to fuel a powerful narrative that the political establishment was arrayed against him and his supporters.
The Justice Department defended the cases, saying they were led by career prosecutors who operated without political influence.
Garland appointed Smith in November 2022 — nearly two years after the Capitol attack — to lead the Justice Department’s two ongoing investigations into Trump. The move came just days after Trump announced a campaign to return to the White House in the 2024 election.
Garland, appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, said Smith would provide a degree of independence in highly sensitive investigations. Garland had rejected previous calls to appoint a special prosecutor, insisting he could adequately oversee the Trump investigations.
Smith returned to Washington from The Hague where he prosecuted war crimes cases stemming from the 1998-1999 Kosovo War. He previously headed the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section and worked in the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn, New York, building a reputation as a tenacious investigator.
In The Hague, Smith secured the conviction of Salih Mustafa, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander who ran a prison where torture took place during the conflict.
EARLY HISTORY
The indictments, the first federal trials against a former US president, accused Trump of taking highly sensitive national security documents to his Florida resort and using false claims of election fraud to try to derail collecting and certifying votes after his 2020 election defeat.
“The attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021 was an unprecedented attack on the seat of American democracy. As the indictment describes, it was fueled by lies – lies of the “accused, aimed at obstructing the fundamental functioning of the American government,” Smith said in announcing the election indictment in August 2023, one of only two public appearances he has made during his investigation. .
Smith faced a narrow window to complete both lawsuits because it was clear that Trump would be able to end them if he won the election. Both faced legal obstacles.
In the classified documents case, Florida-based U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump nominee, dismissed all charges in July after ruling that Smith was wrongly appointed as special counsel.
Smith’s office appealed the decision. Prosecutors dropped the appeal regarding Trump after his election victory but indicated they would continue efforts to revive charges against two Trump associates accused of obstructing the investigation.
The election case was on hold for months while Trump’s lawyers appealed for presidential immunity. The U.S. Supreme Court largely sided with Trump in August, ruling that he could not be prosecuted for many official acts he performed as president, causing further delays in the affair.
Smith acknowledged in court papers that his team faced an “unprecedented circumstance” after Trump won the election against Democrat Kamala Harris. His office concluded that both cases could not proceed.
Trump was convicted of falsifying business records following a trial in the New York hush money case brought by state prosecutors. His sentencing was delayed indefinitely after his election victory and Trump’s lawyers are seeking to have it thrown out in its entirety.
The Georgia case, which also includes charges against 14 Trump allies, remains in limbo while an appeals court determines whether the lead prosecutor, Fani Willis, should be disqualified for misconduct following a romantic affair with a former senior deputy. The case against Trump is unlikely to move forward as long as he remains president.
