At Attorney General Merrick Garland’s request, Jack Smith is taking over the criminal investigation into President Donald Trump’s ouster. A difficult task awaits the career lawyer who worked for the Kosovo Special Court in The Hague.
Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election earlier this week.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel on Friday to complete the ongoing criminal investigation into ex-President Donald Trump. Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith, a longtime Justice Department staffer, at a short-notice press conference. Garland said the appointment of a special counsel was in the “public interest” after Trump announced Tuesday that he would run for president again and his boss, President Joe Biden, was also flirting with another candidacy.
AG Garland says he’s appointing a special counsel due to 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.” pic.twitter.com/wgubwleKbJ
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 18, 2022
Two tasks await Smith. He is to decide whether Trump can be held legally accountable in connection with the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. And he must determine whether the Republican broke the law by leaking government documents during his involuntary departure from the White House.
Garland called Smith “the right choice” for this delicate job. The special counsel was not present at the press conference, allegedly because he is still recovering from a bicycle accident. His current place of work is in Europe. In The Hague, Smith deals with the crimes that the UCK guerrilla army is accused of in the Kosovo war. In 2018 he was appointed Associate Prosecutor of the Kosovo Special Court.
Corruption hunters under President Obama
In America, Smith made a name for himself as a corruption hunter during the presidency of Barack Obama. From 2010 to 2015, the Harvard graduate headed the department at the Justice Department that specializes in investigations against politicians. However, his record was mixed. In 2016, for example, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Robert McDonnell on the grounds that the Department of Justice had gone too far with the indictment.
JackSmith
Smith, who has a reputation for being impartial, reports to the Attorney General in his new post. However, Garland indicated on Friday that he would give him a lot of leeway. For his part, Smith announced in a statement that he would quickly familiarize himself with the complex dossiers. “The pace of the investigations will not slow down under my supervision,” he said in a statement released by the Justice Department.
Sharp criticism from Trump
Trump, in turn, was outraged by the appointment of a special counsel. “This is unacceptable. It’s so unfair,” he said in an interview with a Fox News Channel correspondent. He hopes that his Republican party friends would have “the courage” to fight this “political” decision – also with reference to special counsel Robert Mueller, who made life difficult for Trump from 2017 to 2019.
The Justice Department will not be swayed by these attacks. Garland is aware that he cannot solve the Trump problem without alienating a large group of Americans. If he grabs him too hard, the ex-president’s supporters howl. If he lets him get away with the document affair, he will incur the wrath of honest Democrats and Republicans.
Even with the appointment of a special counsel, Garland will have the last word. The decision on whether or not to impeach Trump is the responsibility of the Attorney General. He can only hope that Smith will make this decision easier for him.