AG Garland names Jack Smith special counsel over Trump investigations

Biden’s Attorney General names special counsel to determine if Trump should be charged over January 6 or Mar-a-Lago documents: Garland picks Jack Smith – career prosecutor who has tried gang murderers and looked into war crimes at The Hague

• Given Trump’s announcement he would run for president in 2024 and President Biden’s stated intent, Garland said he was obligated to appoint a special counsel
• Since 2018 Smith has served as chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, investigating war crimes in Kosovo 
• Investigations into Trump’s involvement in the January 6 riot and the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago are part of the deliberations

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed war crimes prosecutor Jack Smith to serve as special counsel to determine if Donald Trump should face charges in multiple Department of Justice probes. 

Given former President Trump’s announcement he would run for president in 2024 and President Biden’s stated intent, Garland said he was obligated to appoint a special counsel to avoid allegations of political bias.

Since 2018 Smith has served as chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, investigating war crimes in Kosovo. He will now return to the U.S. to oversee the Trump investigations.  

Smith has experience in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity bureau, which handles government corruption. He also served as US Attorney in Tennessee’s Middle District and assistant District Attorney in New York where he worked on sex crimes and domestic violence units. 

Smith is currently also a vice president and head of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America, the largest non-governmental healthcare provider.   

Investigations into Trump’s involvement in the January 6 riot and the handling and storage of classified documents in his Mar-a-Lago, Florida home are part of the deliberations, Garland said Friday afternoon.

Trump is under investigation for multiple criminal laws including the unlawful retention of national defense documents and obstruction of justice. His conduct around January 6 is also being probed, to see if he unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power after the 2020 election or the congressional certification of the Electoral College vote. 

‘I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions they may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the DOJ. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,’ Smith said in a statement after the announcement.  

The appointment of a special counsel does not come as a complete surprise, as Trump’s status as a presidential candidate raises serious conflict of interest concerns for the DOJ. 

Since 2018 Jack Smith has served as chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, investigating war crimes in Kosovo. He will now return to the U.S. to oversee the Trump investigations

‘Such an important appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,’ Garland said in a press conference

‘Such an important appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,’ Garland said in a press conference. ‘It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue to work expeditiously and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.’

And it comes at a time of increasing scrutiny of U.S. law enforcement agencies. 

This would mark the third naming of an independent prosecutor in five years related to Trump. 

Such prosecutors typically have a high degree of independence to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

Former FBI director Robert Mueller was appointed in 2017 to oversee the federal investigation into Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and its contacts with Russia. In 2019, John Durham was appointed to investigate the origins of the FBI’s probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign. 

Eric Trump, Donald’s second son, reacted to the news on Truth Social: ‘Interesting that two days day after my father announces his presidential run, and a day after the House launches investigations into the Biden family corruptions, Biden (his likely challenger) announces a special counsel to prosecute him. This is communism. But, I’m sure this wasn’t planned…American political corruption at its finest!’ 

Attorney General Merrick Garland will appoint a special counsel to determine if Donald Trump should faces charges in Department of Justice probes, according to a report Friday

Smith will be tasked with overseeing the DOJ’s investigation into Trump’s taking of classified and official documents to Mar-a-Lago

List of legal issues Trump is STILL facing as he announces his 2024 run 

Donald Trump is still facing a list of legal woes after formally announcing he will run for president for the third time in 2024.

Since he left office in January 2021, probes into his family business, his role in the Capitol Riot, and the trove of documents he took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago have piled up.

The former president has claimed the cases are politically-motivated witch hunts to try and take him down.  

He chose now to announce his third run for the Oval Office to potentially clear out the list of Republican primary rivals – with Ron DeSantis hotly favored to join the race and others like Mike Pence and Glenn Youngkin in the list of possible candidates.

But it could also have been to get ahead of an indictment by the Department of Justice.

The DOJ could still charge Trump in one of the probes, but it is likely he will fire up his supporters by claiming President Biden is using law enforcement to go after his opponents. 

However, he is still facing criminal and civil cases with his family business that could create financial obstacles during the campaign. 

Earlier this month, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the committee would stop paying his legal fees if he announced a 2024 run. 

DailyMail.com has broken down the legal issues Trump is facing as he launches his presidential run.

The documents Trump took from the White House to Mar-a-Lago when he left office  

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump for retaining government records, including some marked as classified, after leaving office in January 2021. 

The FBI seized 11,000 documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in a court-approved August 8 search, including about 100 marked as classified. 

Some were designated top secret, the highest level of classified information.

The department began its investigation after the National Archives, the U.S. agency responsible for preserving government records, tried to get Trump to return missing government property and received 15 boxes with classified documents mixed in.

Trump has accused the Justice Department of engaging in a partisan witch hunt and claims the documents he took were part of his personal records and were declassified when he left office.

A so-called special master, Senior U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, is reviewing the seized documents to determine whether any are protected by attorney-client privilege or by executive privilege, a legal doctrine under which a president can keep certain documents or information secret.

The Justice Department is also asking a federal appeals court to end that review and to let them access unclassified materials taken in the search, arguing that both measures are hindering their criminal investigation.

The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into Trump for retaining government records, including some marked as classified, after leaving office in January 2021

New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250million civil suit claiming Trump inflated property values to mislead banks and investors

New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a civil lawsuit filed last month that her office uncovered more than 200 examples of misleading asset valuations by Trump and the Trump Organization between 2011 and 2021. 

James accused Trump of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to satisfy loan terms and get better insurance coverage.

Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million when it should have been closed to $75 million, the 200-page lawsuit against the Trump Organization claims. 

James is seeking to permanently bar Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump from running companies in New York state, and to prevent them and his company from buying new properties and taking out new loans in the state for five years. 

James is also seeking to have the defendants disgorge around $250 million that she described as obtained through fraud.

After James announced the lawsuit, Trump in a social media post called the action ‘Another Witch Hunt.’ 

A lawyer for Trump called the lawsuit’s claims ‘meritless.’

James said her probe also uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing, which she referred to federal prosecutors and the Internal Revenue Service for investigation.

Mar-a-Lago was valued as high as $739 million when it should have been closed to $75 million, the 200-page lawsuit against the Trump Organization claims

New York criminal probe into Trump Organization’s ‘tax-free perks’ to top executives  

The Trump Organization is on trial in New York on criminal tax fraud charges. 

The Manhattan district attorney’s office last year accused the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp. of giving executives tax-free perks such as rent-free apartments, school tuition feeds and leased luxury cars. 

Its former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, also named as a defendant in the James lawsuit, has pleaded guilty and is required to testify against the company as part of his agreement with prosecutors.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has also been investigating whether Trump misled lenders and others about asset valuations. 

Trump has denied wrongdoing and called the probe politically motivated.

E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case over rape allegations from the 1990s  

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied her allegation that he raped her in the 1990s in a New York City department store. 

Trump accused her of lying to drum up sales for a book.

Trump appeared on Wednesday for a deposition in the case, according to his and Carroll’s lawyers.

In a letter made public on Sept. 20, a lawyer for Carroll said she also plans to sue Trump for battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under a new state law in New York giving adult accusers a one-year window to bring civil claims over alleged civil misconduct regardless of when it occurred.

A lawyer for Trump has argued that he is protected by a federal law that makes government employees immune from defamation claims. Trump was president at the time the lawsuit was filed.

The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said last month that Trump was a federal employee when he called Carroll a liar, but left open the question of whether he was acting as president when he made the statement to a Washington, D.C., appeals court.

E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine writer, sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied her allegation that he raped her in the 1990s in a New York City department store

The January 6 committee’s investigation into the Capitol Riot 

A House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol is investigating whether he broke the law in actions taken to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat. 

The rioters sought to block Congress from certifying the election results.

The committee unanimously voted in October to subpoena Trump as part of its probe. 

Trump sued the committee on November 11 to challenge the subpoena by questioning the legitimacy of the committee and suggesting he has immunity from testifying about his conduct while he was president.  

On Monday night the committee said Trump had ‘failed to comply’ with the subpoena for documents and testimony from that day.

‘In the days ahead, the committee will evaluate next steps in the litigation and regarding the former President’s noncompliance,’ Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who serve as chair and vice chair of the committee respectively, said in a statement.

Trump could face a misdemeanor charge if he does not comply. The former president could also challenge it in court, as he has done with other subpoenas, which would likely tie the matter up in litigation until the committee concludes its work.

Committee vice chair Liz Cheney has said the committee could make multiple referrals to the Justice Department seeking criminal charges against Trump, who has accused the panel of conducting a politically motivated sham investigation.

The committee cannot charge Trump with federal crimes. That decision must be made by the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Merrick Garland. The panel is expected to issue a written report on its findings in the coming weeks.

A House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, assault by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol is investigating whether he broke the law in actions taken to try to overturn his 2020 election defeat

Georgia’s criminal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election  

A special grand jury was selected in May to consider evidence in a Georgia prosecutor’s inquiry into Trump’s alleged efforts to influence that state’s 2020 election results.

The investigation focuses in part on a phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump asked Raffensperger to ‘find’ the votes needed to overturn Trump’s election loss.

Legal experts said Trump may have violated at least three Georgia criminal election laws: conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and intentional interference with performance of election duties.

Trump could argue he was engaging in constitutionally protected free speech.

A California federal judge said in October in a separate lawsuit that Trump had knowingly made false voter fraud claims in a Georgia election lawsuit, according to emails the judge reviewed. It is not immediately clear what ramifications Trump could face from the ruling.

 

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