Department of Justice prosecutor Jack Smith — who oversaw two ill-fated federal criminal cases filed by the Biden DOJ against President-elect Donald Trump during a competitive presidential campaign — has officially resigned from the Justice Department. Smith officially resigned from the DOJ on Friday after previously announcing that he would be “winding down” his remaining case against Trump after he won re-election.
News of Smith’s departure came in a court filing Justice Department officials submitted to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Saturday afternoon. Smith has been seeking to release a “final report” on his defunct investigation into the Biden DOJ’s chief political rival, which has thus far been blocked by Judge Cannon. The Florida-based federal judge previously Smith’s controversial classified documents case against Trump — the first of two federal cases filed by Smith’s office — after taking issue with the constitutional basis for his appointment as special prosecutor.
In her 93-page decision, the Trump-appointed judge explained at length about the power of Congress to appoint special agents of the DOJ, a power that she said was not conferred to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The relevant history, according to Special Counsel Smith, shows that Congress tacitly authorized—or silently acquiesced to—the use of Section 515 (or its predecessor statutes) to appoint “special attorneys” like himself… Upon review of the murky historical record, the Court determines that, whatever themes can be drawn from that background, they cannot supplant the plain language of the statute itself, which clearly does not vest the Attorney General with such authority,” Cannon wrote.
Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to reporters Friday, June 9, 2023, in Washington. Former President Donald Trump is facing 37 felony charges related to the mish andling of classified documents according to an indictment unsealed on Friday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
“At most, the history reflects an ad hoc, inconsistent practice of naming prosecutors from both inside and outside of government (typically in response to national scandal) who possessed wildly variant degrees of power and autonomy. The lack of consistency makes it near impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions about Congress’s approval of modern special counsels like Special Counsel Smith—much less its acquiescence to Section 515 as a vehicle for such appointments,” she added.
An Atlanta-based federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a bid to block the partial release of a portion of Smith’s final report detailing his investigation and prosecution of a leading presidential candidate. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit denied the request from Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump, and Carlos de Oliveira, the former property manager at Mar-a-Lago, who were charged for their role in allegedly mishandling classified documents. The 11th Circuit granted Smith’s request to remove President-elect Trump from the case after his victory, though DOJ prosecutors are currently appealing a lower court decision dismissing the charges against Nauta and de Oliveira, which cited the constitutional questions surrounding Smith’s appointment.
The documents case was brought despite the fact that Trump’s legal team was in constant contact with the National Archives regarding potentially classified documents. Despite the fact that Trump was cooperating and had no reason to suspect anything out of the ordinary, heavily armed FBI agents with deadly force authorization opted to ransack then-candidate Trump’s home.
Agents then staged a photo op with “top secret” folders to give the appearance that the president-elect was hoarding troves of classified documents, leading to several debunked conspiracy theories about the contents of the documents, including one that falsely claimed Trump was “selling nuclear secrets.” The folders were not included with the alleged classified documents, but were used in a viral photo from the raid.
Trump had contended that the alleged classified documents were declassified while he was leaving office. The boxes were also kept in a secure, locked room that was kept under 24-hour surveillance. While Smith opted to bring charges against Trump, a separate special counsel opted not to bring criminal charges against President Biden for the same conduct.
FBI agents placed “classified” folders over unidentified documents recovered from President-elect Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate. Smith later conceded that the photo was staged, adding that there was no way to tell whether the photographed documents were actually classified
