US special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on president-elect Donald Trump, a move expected to come amid a legal dispute over which of that document can be published in the coming days.
The department disclosed Smith's departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The appointment, 10 days before Trump's inauguration, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal charges against Trump that were withdrawn after Trump's victory in the White House in November.
The issue now is what happened to a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared about their two investigations into Trump's efforts to change the results of his 2020 election and the collection of classified documents at the estate. to turn Mar-a-Lago back.
The Justice Department was expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge presiding over the classified documents filed a defense motion to stop its release. if it dissolves for a while at least. 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 releasing the report would be a misdemeanor, an argument that was dismissed. filed by Trump's legal team.
The department responded by saying it would withhold from public release the volume of classified documents while criminal cases against Nauta and De Oliveira remained pending. Although US District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the case last July, Smith's team's appeal of that decision related to the two co-defendants was still pending.
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But prosecutors said they planned to proceed with the distribution of the size of the election ban.
In an emergency move late Friday, they asked the Atlanta-based 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals to quickly lift a restraining order from Cannon that prevented them from releasing any part of the report. They told Cannon separately on Saturday that she did not have the authority to stop the release of the report, but she responded with an order ordering prosecutors to file an additional brief by Sunday.
The appeals court on Thursday night rejected an urgent defense application to block the release of the election interference report, which covers Trump's efforts before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, to cancel the results of the 2020 election. But that left Cannon's injunction in place that said none of the rulings could be released until three days after the case was settled by the appeals court.
The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon's order was “clearly erroneous.”
“The Attorney General is the head of the Department of Justice who is confirmed by the Senate and is responsible for the authority to supervise the officers and employees of the department,” said the Department of Justice. “The attorney general therefore has the authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.”
Department of Justice regulations require special counsel to produce reports at the end of their work, and it is customary for these documents to be made public regardless of the subject.
William Barr, attorney general in Trump's first term, released a special counsel report investigating Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and their possible connections to the Trump campaign.
Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also released special counsel reports, including how Biden handled classified information before Biden became president.
