Special counsel Jack Smith and his team to resign before Trump takes office

[Pelican Press 0]

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Special counsel Jack Smith and his team to resign before Trump takes office

Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to members of the media at the US Department of Justice building in Washington, DC, on August 1, 2023.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith and his team plan to resign before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, a source familiar with the matter said.

Smith’s office has been 

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, as the Justice Department’s longstanding position is that it cannot charge a sitting president with a ******.

The 

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 first reported Smith will step down.

The looming question in the weeks ahead is whether Smith’s final report, detailing his charging decisions, will be made public before Inauguration Day. The special counsel’s office is required under Justice Department regulations to provide a confidential report to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who can choose to make it public.

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In late October, 

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 as special counsel if re-elected. “It’s so easy — I would ***** him within two seconds,” Trump said, adding that he got “

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.” The next attorney general could decide not to release Smith’s final report as well.

Before Trump’s re-election last week, Smith and his team had continued moving forward in their election interference case against Trump. After Trump’s victory, however, a federal judge overseeing the case agreed to give the special counsel’s office until 

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 to decide how to proceed. 

The Justice Department 

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for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. But Smith’s case was hampered early on by appeals from Trump’s legal team and then in July of this year by the Supreme Court’s 

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for some acts he took as president. In August, Smith’s team re-tooled the indictment — stripping it of certain evidence the high court said was off limits and a federal grand jury 

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.

The Justice Department had also charged Trump in Florida with allegedly hoarding classified documents after he left office and then refusing to give them back. But a federal judge dismissed 

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saying Smith’s appointment was ********. That case ******** on appeal.

When the former president was first indicted, Smith said he would move quickly to trial, but Trump’s legal team successfully sought to delay in both cases while then-candidate Trump routinely lambasted Smith at his rallies and online.

The election-interference case in Washington was narrowly focused on Trump, but an open question ******** as to whether any unnamed co-conspirators referenced in the indictments face future legal jeopardy.

There’s no Justice Department norm for alleged ********* conspirators to avoid being prosecuted because they are connected to an incoming president, or because that future president is likely to pardon them.

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#Special #counsel #Jack #Smith #team #resign #Trump #takes #office

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