Special Counsel Jack Smith Resigns After Presenting Final Report on Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal disputes over how much of that document can be made public in the next few days.

The department disclosed Smith’s departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he had resigned a day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump’s inauguration, comes after the conclusion of two failed criminal proceedings against Trump that were dropped after his victory in the White House in November.

What’s at stake now is the fate of a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared on their twin investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his property. Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department was expected to release the document in the waning days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case granted a defense request at least temporarily stop its launch. Two of Trump’s co-defendants in that case, Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that was joined Trump’s legal team.

The department responded by saying it would withhold public disclosure of the volume of classified documents while criminal proceedings against Nauta and De Oliveira remained pending. Although U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the case last July, an appeal by the Smith team of that decision involving the two co-defendants remained pending.

But prosecutors said they intended to proceed with publishing the volume of election interference.

In an emergency motion Friday night, they asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to quickly lift a court order by Cannon that had prevented them from releasing any part of the report. Cannon was separately told Saturday that she had no authority to stop the report’s release, but she responded with an order directing prosecutors to file an additional brief by Sunday.

The appeals court on Thursday night rejected an emergency defense attempt to block the release of the election interference report, which covers Trump’s efforts before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, to undo the 2020 election results. But he left in place Cannon’s court order that said none of the findings could be released until three days after the appeals court ruled on the matter.

The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon’s order was “clearly erroneous.”

“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. “Therefore, the Attorney General has the authority to decide whether to publish an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.”

Justice Department regulations require special counsels to produce reports upon completion of their work, and it is common for such documents to be made public regardless of the subject.

William Barr, attorney general during Trump’s first term, released a special counsel report examining Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its 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 took office.