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JD: Special Counsel Smith Resigned 01/13 06:08
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the 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 disclosed Smith's departure in a court filing Saturday,
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prosecutions against Trump that were withdrawn following Trump's White House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.
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.
The department responded by saying that it would withhold from public
release the classified documents volume as long as criminal proceedings against
Nauta and De Oliveira remain pending. Though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon
had dismissed the case last July, a Smith team appeal of that decision related
to the two co-defendants remained pending.
But prosecutors said they intended to proceed with the release of the
election interference volume.
In an emergency motion late Friday, they asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals to swiftly lift an injunction from Cannon that had
barred them from releasing any portion of the report. They separately told
Cannon on Saturday that she had no authority to halt the release of the report,
but she responded with an order directing prosecutors to file an additional
brief by Sunday.
The appeals court on Thursday night denied an emergency defense bid to block
the release of the election interference report, which covers Trump's efforts
before Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to undo the results of the 2020 election.
But it left in place Cannon's injunction that said none of the findings could
be released until three days after the matter was resolved by the appeals court.
The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that
Cannon's order was "plainly erroneous."
"The Attorney General is the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of
Justice and is vested with the authority to supervise all officers and
employees of the Department," the Justice Department said. "The Attorney
General thus has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report
prepared by his subordinates."
Justice Department regulations call for special counsels to produce reports
at the conclusion of their work, and it's customary for such documents to be
made public no matter the subject.
William Barr, attorney general during Trump's first term, released a special
counsel report examining Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential
election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.
Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also released special counsel
reports, including about Biden's handling of classified information before
Biden became president.
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