Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned after submitting his Trump report, Justice Department says
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after filing its investigative report on newly elected President Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the coming days.
The department announced Smith’s departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he resigned a day earlier. The resignation, ten days before Trump is inaugurated follows the conclusion of two failed criminal prosecutions against Trump, which were rescinded after Trump’s victory in the White House in November.
Now it’s about A’s fate report in two parts that Smith and his team had been preparing for their dual investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
The Justice Department was expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the classified documents case granted a defense request for its release on his to be stopped at least temporarily. Two of Trump’s co-defendants in that case, Trump employee Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that releasing the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that Trump’s legal team joined.
The ministry responded by saying it would not make public the amount of classified documents while criminal proceedings against Nauta and De Oliveira remain pending. Although U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case last July, an appeal by the Smith team of that decision regarding the two co-defendants remained pending.
But prosecutors said they planned to continue releasing the election interference volume.
In one emergency motion late Fridaythey asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to quickly lift an order from Cannon that had barred them from releasing any part of the report. They separately told Cannon Saturday that she had no authority to stop the report’s release, but she responded with an order directing prosecutors to file a supplemental brief by Sunday.
The appeals court on Thursday evening rejected an emergency defense bid to block the release of the election interference report. which covers Trump’s efforts before the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, to overturn the results of the 2020 election. But it left in place Cannon’s order, which said none of the findings could be released until three days after the case was resolved by the appeals court.
The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon’s order was “clearly incorrect.”
“The Attorney General is the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice and has the authority to oversee all Department officials and employees,” the Justice Department said. investigation report prepared by his subordinates.”
Department of Justice regulations require special counsels to prepare reports at the end of their work, and it is common for such documents to be made public regardless of the subject matter.
William Barr, attorney general during Trump’s first term, released a special counsel report investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible ties to the Trump campaign.
Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also released special counsel reports, including on Biden’s handling of classified information before Biden became president.