A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith was appointed in November 2022 – nearly two years after the US Capitol attack.
Jack Smith, the special counsel who led two federal cases against Donald Trump, has left the United States Department of Justice before the Republican president-elect is inaugurated on January 20 for a second term.
The two cases involve Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House and efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat. Trump was indicted in both cases overseen by Smith.
“The Special Counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on January 7, 2025, and separated from the Department on January 10,” officials said in the document submitted to US District Judge Aileen Cannon, urging her last week not to extend her order blocking the release of Smith’s final report.
The statement on Smith was a footnote in the filing to Cannon as she mulls whether to maintain a hold on the special counsel’s report on two cases.
A former war crimes prosecutor, Smith was appointed in November 2022 – nearly two years after the US Capitol attack – to lead the Justice Department’s twin ongoing investigations into Trump.
He brought two of the four criminal cases Trump faced after leaving office but saw them grind to a halt after a Trump-appointed judge in Florida dismissed one and the US Supreme Court found that former presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for official acts. Neither case went to trial.
After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election, Smith dropped both cases, citing a longstanding Justice Department rule against prosecuting sitting presidents. In asking courts to dismiss the charges, Smith’s team defended the merits of the cases they had brought, signalling only that Trump’s impending return to the White House made them untenable.
Smith’s departure is another marker of the collapse of the criminal cases against Trump, which could end without any legal consequences for the incoming president and led to a backlash that helped fuel his political comeback.
Meanwhile, Trump, who has frequently called Smith “deranged” and said he would fire him immediately upon taking office, has suggested that he may pursue retribution against Smith and others who investigated him once he returns to office.
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