Special prosecutor who tried to put Trump on trial resigns from Justice Department

Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the US Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on President-elect Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead.

The department discloses Smith’s departure in a court filing, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions against Trump that were withdrawn following Trump’s White House win in November.

Smith’s departure is another marker of the collapse of the criminal cases against Trump, which could end without any legal consequences for the incoming president and sparked a backlash that helped fuel his political comeback.

Trump, who has frequently called Smith “deranged,” had said he would fire him immediately upon taking office on Jan. 20, and has suggested that he may pursue retribution against Smith and others who investigated him once he returns to office.

At issue now is the fate of a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared about their twin investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

The Justice Department had been expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case granted a defense request to at least temporarily halt its release. Two of Trump’s co-defendants in that case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that the Trump legal team joined in.