Jack Smith plans to end prosecutions of Trump, resign before president-elect sworn in – report Justice department special counsel Jack Smith plans to end his two prosecutions of Donald Trump and resign before the president-elect takes office, the New York Times reports.
Smith last year indicted Trump for allegedly plotting to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and for conspiring to hide classified documents. Neither case made it to trial before Trump’s election victory last week, which appeared to make it impossible for Smith to continue. Justice department policy prohibits the prosecution of sitting presidents, and Trump has vowed to fire Smith within “two seconds” of becoming president again.
Here’s more, from the Times:
Jack Smith, the special counsel who pursued two federal prosecutions of Donald J. Trump, plans to finish his work and resign along with other members of his team before Mr. Trump takes office in January, people familiar with his plans said.
Mr. Smith’s goal, they said, is to not leave any significant part of his work for others to complete and to get ahead of the president-elect’s promise to fire him within “two seconds” of being sworn in.
Mr. Smith, who since taking office two years ago has operated under the principle that not even a powerful ex-president is above the law, now finds himself on the defensive as he rushes to wind down a pair of complex investigations slowed by the courts and ultimately made moot by Mr. Trump’s electoral victory.
Mr. Smith’s office is still drawing up its plan for how to end the cases, and it is possible that unforeseen circumstances — such as judicial rulings or decisions by other government officials — could alter his intended timeline. But Mr. Smith is trying to finish his work and leave before Mr. Trump returns to power, the people familiar with his plans said.
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As he prepares for his last act as special counsel, Mr. Smith’s ultimate audience will not be a jury, but the public.
Department regulations call for him to file a report summarizing his investigation and decisions — a document that may stand as the final accounting from a prosecutor who filed extensive charges against a former president but never got his cases to trial.
It is not clear how quickly he can finish this work, leaving uncertain whether it could be made public before the Biden administration leaves office. But several officials said he has no intention of lingering any longer than he has to, and has told career prosecutors and F.B.I. agents on his team who are not directly involved in that process that they can start planning their departures over the next few weeks, people close to the situation said.
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Trump mulling ex-Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for top intelligence job Donald Trump is considering appointing Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who left the party and endorsed his candidacy, as his director of national intelligence, Punchbowl News reports.
Gabbard represented Hawaii from 2013 through 2021, and made a failed attempt to win the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020.
As a congresswoman, she made an unusual trip to government-controlled areas of Syria during its civil war, met with its president, Bashar al-Assad, and later publicly doubted his responsibility in a well-documented chemical weapons attack. Should Trump nominate her for the job overseeing US intelligence agencies, you can expect that episode to come up at her confirmation hearings. Here’s more about her, from when she made her bid for president: