(Washington) Special prosecutor Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his report investigating President-elect Donald Trump, an expected decision that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of the document can be released public in the coming days.
The department revealed Mr. Smith’s departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he had resigned a day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal charges against the president-elect that were withdrawn after the Republican won the White House in November.
The question now is the fate of a two-volume report that Mr. Smith and his team prepared on their twin investigations into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and its accumulation of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago property.
The Justice Department was expected to make the document public in the final days of Joe Biden’s administration, but the Donald Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case agreed to a defense request to at least temporarily suspend its publication. Two of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants in the case, his valet, Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that releasing the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument the team Mr. Trump’s legal counsel joined.
The department responded by saying it would refuse to release the volume of classified documents while criminal proceedings against Mr. Nauta and Mr. De Oliveira were pending. Although District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case last July, an appeal of that decision by Mr Smith’s team regarding the two co-defendants was still pending.
Prosecutors argued, however, that they intended to proceed with the publication of the volume on election interference.
In an emergency motion filed last Friday, they asked the 11e United States Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, to quickly lift an injunction from Mme Cannon which prohibited them from publishing part of the report. They separately told the judge Saturday that she had no authority to stop the report’s release, but she responded with an order requiring prosecutors to file a supplemental brief by Sunday.
The appeals court late Thursday rejected an emergency defense request to block the release of the election interference report, which covers Donald Trump’s efforts before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, to overturn the results of the 2020 election. However, she left in place the injunction of Mme Cannon, which stipulated that none of the findings could be released until three days after the appeals court resolved the case.
The Justice Department told the Court of Appeal in its emergency motion that Ms.me Cannon was “patently wrong.”
“The Attorney General is the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice and has the authority to supervise all officers and employees of the Department,” the Justice Department said. The Attorney General therefore has the power to decide whether or not to publish an investigation report prepared by his subordinates. »
Justice Department regulations require special counsel to produce reports upon completion of their work. It is customary for these documents to be made public, regardless of the subject.
William Barr, attorney general during Donald Trump’s first term, has released a special counsel report examining Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and potential links to Mr Trump’s campaign.
Mr. Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, also released reports from special advisers, including on Joe Biden’s handling of classified information before he became president.
