USA Trump special prosecutor Jack Smith steps down
Shortly before the change of government in the USA, the special prosecutor appointed against Republican Donald Trump, Jack Smith, has left the Department of Justice.
12.01.2025, 00:44
12.01.2025, 00:45
SDA
Smith had completed his work, submitted his confidential final report and left the department, according to a court document from the Justice Department. The department had appointed Smith as a special investigator against Trump. He led the two federal cases against the former president.
After Trump's victory in the presidential election, the US Attorney's Office dropped the two criminal proceedings. Smith applied for the proceedings for attempted election fraud in the US capital Washington to be dropped. At the same time, Smith withdrew his appeal against the dismissal of the criminal proceedings in the document affair in the US state of Florida.
Smith justified the decisions with the custom that the Department of Justice does not take action against sitting presidents. Trump will return to the White House on January 20, when he takes over from outgoing incumbent Joe Biden.
With the decision to drop the proceedings, Smith and the Department of Justice probably only beat Trump to it. As these are proceedings at federal level, the US President-elect would probably have stopped the investigations after taking office anyway and instructed the Department of Justice to drop the proceedings. It remains to be seen whether they will be resumed after Trump's term of office.
Smith's withdrawal also comes as no surprise. There is still a dispute about the extent to which his final report could be published. During the election campaign, Trump regularly called Smith wild names and in recent months has made several direct and indirect threats to take legal action against political opponents like him.
