Special counsel Jack Smith is throwing in the towel.
The prosecutor that oversaw President-elect Donald Trump’s January 6 case and his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is planning to finish his work and quit the office before Inauguration Day, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Trump had promised to fire Smith “within two seconds” of being sworn in as the country’s 47th president.
“We got immunity at the Supreme Court. It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds. He’ll be one of the first things addressed,” Trump told the Hugh Hewitt Show in October, adding his intentions to sue Smith.
Smith worked for two years on outstandingly complex cases against the former president, but actually translating them into trials proved even more difficult. Trump’s legal team employed practically every tactic to slow roll the cases until a general election that made the whole effort moot (Justice Department policy prevents a sitting president from being prosecuted for crimes).
Before leaving the post, regulation requires that Smith file a report summarizing the investigation and his team’s decisions, though it’s unclear how quickly he will be able to do so. If he manages to finish it within President Joe Biden’s term, the document will likely become public, leaving a historic black mark on Trump’s legacy before his second administration begins. But if Smith fails to do so, the fate of such a document would remain unknown.
Smith has become a favorite target of the MAGA party, who frame him as the figurehead behind Democratic efforts to destroy Trump.
In October, Smith released an eye-opening report related to Trump’s January 6 case that included revelations about Trump’s behavior ahead of and on January 6. The report outlined what Smith described as Trump’s “private criminal conduct.”
“At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one,” prosecutors wrote in the massive motion. “He extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office.”
But Smith’s efforts to make Trump face legal consequences were cut off at the legs in July, when the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to expand a president’s immunity and redefine what constitutes an “official act,” effectively deciding that Trump could not be held accountable for some of his behavior with regards to attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
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