Garland names Jack Smith special counsel for Trump criminal probes

Source: Politico | November 18, 2022 | Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney

Smith, a former chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, will oversee criminal matters related to former President Donald Trump.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday appointed a special prosecutor to oversee criminal investigations related to former President Donald Trump.

Jack Smith, a former chief of the Justice Department’s unit that investigates public corruption — the Public Integrity Section — will take on the new role which operates largely independent of Justice Department control under decades-old federal regulations. The announcement represents a new phase in the extraordinary investigations into an ex-president and his allies and comes as Trump mounts a new bid to reclaim the presidency.

“Based on recent developments, including the former President’s announcement that he is a candidate for President in the next election, and the sitting President’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said in a statement. “Such an appointment underscores the Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”

The special counsel’s purview will include the Justice Department’s ongoing probe of Trump’s alleged retention of highly sensitive national security secrets at his Mar-a-Lago estate, as well as aspects of the effort by Trump and his allies’ effort to subvert the 2020 election and disrupt the transition of power to President Joe Biden.

Garland announced the move at a short-notice press conference at Justice Department headquarters Friday afternoon just hours after signing a formal order tapping Smith for the post. Smith, a 1994 Harvard Law School graduate, led the department’s public integrity section for five years during the Obama administration before taking on a position at the U.S. attorney’s office in the Middle District of Tennessee.

During his stint at the Public Integrity Section, Smith oversaw the prosecutions of CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was convicted in 2015 of disclosing national defense information and obstructing justice — two potential crimes at the center of the Trump documents probe. Smith also oversaw the convictions of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and former Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, both for bribery and extortion charges. McDonnell’s conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

Since 2018, Smith has been prosecuting war crimes in the Hague stemming from the conflict in Kosovo. He’s registered to vote in the U.S. as a political independent, officials said.

The announcement also came amid a flurry of notable activity at the federal courthouse in Washington, where three new grand juries were impaneled Friday, likely linked to the start of Smith’s investigation.

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  • Consistent #56639

    EVERYDAY #56641

    Almost 2 years and Garland now decides to pawn this off on another attorney. So this guy will spend months getting up to speed which will drag the investigations on even longer. Eventually, the investigations will go away and Trump will once again get away with crimes.

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