Attorney General Merrick Garland has named the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Jack Smith to be the special counsel overseeing two major criminal investigations involving former President Donald Trump.
On Friday, Garland announced that Smith, the former head of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section, will preside over the investigation into the confidential records that Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago once he left office last year, as well as his role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The announcement comes just three days after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential race—a development that Garland said factored into his decision that "it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel."
"Such an appointment underscores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters," Garland said at a press conference.
Smith is a veteran prosecutor with nearly three decades of experience in criminal cases who has served both the state and federal level. He has also extensive experience prosecuting international political and criminal investigations.
Smith, a Harvard Law graduate, began his career in 1994 as a prosecutor in Manhattan with the New York County District Attorney's Office.
He then moved to the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, where he served in a number of positions across nine years, including Chief of Criminal Litigation. In that role, he "supervised approximately 100 criminal prosecutors across a range of program areas, such as public corruption, violent crime and gangs, and white collar and complex financial fraud," according to his DOJ profile.
James McGovern, a lawyer who worked with him in the Brooklyn office, described Smith as "the consummate prosecutor and public servant: Intelligent, balanced and fair."
"I have no idea what his political beliefs are because he's completely apolitical. He's committed to doing what is right," McGovern told The New York Times.
In a statement made on Friday, Smith said he will "independently" judge the investigations and move the cases "forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate." He will still have to report to Garland, who will ultimately decide whether or not to bring charges against Trump in either investigation.
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told Newsweek on Friday in a statement that the appointment is "bad news" for Trump, especially given Garland's "meticulous and cautious" reputation.
"It's too soon to know whether Smith will take a different approach, and Garland is still the ultimate decision-maker, but having a new prosecutor investigate the former president makes charges more likely," Rahmani said.
In 2008, Smith went to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in the Netherlands where he was the investigation coordinator for the Office of the Prosecutor for two years. During his time in the ICC, he supervised investigations involving the alleged war crimes of foreign government officials.
He then returned to the U.S. to join the DOJ as Chief of the Public Integrity Section, overseeing litigation of public corruption and election-related investigations, including inquiries into Democratic and Republican officials. He went on to serve as a prosecutor for the Middle District of Tennessee before becoming the head of litigation for Hospital Corporation of America, the nation's largest non-governmental health care provider.
In 2018, Smith became the special chief prosecutor in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes during the Kosovo War. He has resigned from the special court and will take on the role of special counsel after leaving that position.
Richard Signorelli, a former assistant U.S. attorney of the Southern District of New York, said while he strongly disagreed with Garland's decision to appoint a special master in the DOJ's probes, Smith is "an otherwise stellar selection."
"Jack should have been brought in to co-lead the prosecution w/out special counsel appt," Signorelli tweeted on Friday.
Rahmani said even though many Americans believe there is probable cause that Trump committed a crime, "charges require more than evidence."
"They require a prosecutor who is willing to move forward. Smith may be that prosecutor," he added.
I know Jack as an adversary when he served as an AUSA @EDNYnews. Though I strongly disagree w/ inept/coward Garland going route of a special counsel, this is an otherwise stellar selection. Jack should have been brought in to co-lead the prosecution w/out special counsel appt. https://t.co/kZ1QrE1y5a
— Richard Signorelli (@richsignorelli) November 18, 2022
Newsweek reached out to Trump's office for comment.
Update 11/18/22 3:47 p.m. This story was update with comment from Rahmani.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Katherine Fung is a Newsweek reporter based in New York City. Her focus is reporting on U.S. and world politics. ... Read more
