DOJ appoints special counsel to oversee Trump investigations

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Attorney General Merrick Garland and other top Justice Department officials looked at a number of possible special counsel candidates before deciding on longtime prosecutor Jack Smith, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The officials spent weeks weighing this appointment, trying to find someone they believed could survive partisan scrutiny, the sources said. They also considered former DOJ officials and people who had served as judges.

Trump already has lashed out over the special counsel’s appointment, saying in an interview on Fox News Digital that he wouldn’t “partake in it.”

“I have been proven innocent for six years on everything — from fake impeachments to Mueller who found no collusion – and now I have to do it more?” Trump told the outlet. “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”

The former president called the decision to name a special counsel “the worst politicization of justice” and said that “the Republican Party has to stand up and fight.”

Who is Jack Smith? Smith is a veteran attorney who began a decades-long prosecutorial career in New York in the mid-1990s.

He is a former acting US attorney in Tennessee and once led the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which handles election crimes and public corruption investigations.

Most recently, Smith served as a chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated and adjudicated war crimes in Kosovo.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended the Department of Justice after former President Donald Trump called Friday’s announcement of a special counsel the “worst politicization of justice.”

“I will say this, and I’ve said this many times before, we do not politicize the Department of Justice,” Jean-Pierre told CNN’s Jeremy Diamond. “That is something that the president said during the campaign, that is something that the president said in his early days of, of being in the White House, and that continues to be true.” 

In an interview with Fox News digital Friday, Trump told the outlet he “won’t partake” in special counsel investigations into his handling of classified documents after leaving office or his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

In his first public comments since Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith to oversee two ongoing federal investigations, the former president told Fox News Digital he “hope(s) the Republicans have the courage to fight this.”

Jean-Pierre referred further questions on the special counsel to the DOJ. 

Special counsel Jack Smith is expected to set up an office outside the Justice Department where he will oversee two investigations related to former President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN. 

Joining him will be the prosecutor teams currently led by Jay Bratt, a senior prosecutor in the DOJ’s national security division; Tom Windom, a seasoned prosecutor who had been assigned to the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC; as well as the FBI agents already assigned to the investigations into the mishandling of government documents and 2020 election interference. They will directly report to Smith.

A special counsel typically has a budget that isn’t easily limited and can decide how long to investigate. 

The fact that Smith won’t be under the day-to-day oversight of DOJ leadership means Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco likely won’t be getting the kind of regular updates that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein received from Robert Mueller’s investigation. Instead, Smith may follow the model of John Durham, the special counsel investigating the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, who has had limited interactions with top DOJ officials.

Mueller’s investigative team worked out of office space in southwest DC, and Durham has operated from office space in northeast DC.

President Joe Biden was not aware of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into the retention of classified documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, the White House told reporters Friday.

“He was not aware, we were not aware,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “As you know, the Department of Justice makes decisions about its criminal investigation independently. We are not involved … We were not even aware about this particular investigation, or any criminal investigation.” 

Garland announced special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment in remarks from the Department of Justice earlier Friday, citing Trump’s newly announced presidential campaign and Biden’s stated intention to run as grounds for the move. 

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said.

During Friday’s White House press briefing, Jean-Pierre declined to say who ultimately informed Biden of the news, telling reporters that “a senior member of his staff would most likely have let him know about this,” adding she had yet to discuss the issue with Biden herself.

Former President Donald Trump said Friday he “won’t partake” in special counsel investigations into his retention of classified documents after leaving office or his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol.

In his first public comments after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to oversee two ongoing federal investigations involving Trump and his associates, the former president told Fox News Digital he “hope[s] the Republicans have the courage to fight this.” 

“I have been proven innocent for six years on everything – from fake impeachments to Mueller who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more?” Trump claimed. “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.” 

In May 2019, special counsel Robert Mueller said that Justice Department guidelines did not allow him to charge a sitting president, and as a result, his office did not determine whether Trump had committed obstruction of justice.

Trump continued, “I am not going to partake in it … I announce and then they appoint a special prosecutor.” 

Trump announced on Tuesday that he intends to seek the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Jack Smith, newly appointed as special counsel by the Department of Justice to oversee criminal investigations into former President Donald Trump, promised to conduct himself with “independent judgment.”

“I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice. The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate,” he said, according to a statement from the DOJ.

Smith is the former chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.

A source close to former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign said the announcement of a special counsel overseeing the investigations into Trump will not change anything about his decision to run or how his team will handle his campaign moving forward. 

The campaign had been prepared for this announcement for several days, the source added.

Separately, in a statement to CNN, a Trump spokesperson responded: “This is a totally expected political stunt by a feckless, politicized, weaponized Biden Department of Justice.” 

Trump has continued to say that the investigations are politically based, including during his 2024 announcement Tuesday, when he called himself a victim. 

Some people in former President Donald Trump’s orbit who were subpoenaed in the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 probe have recently been given dates in the near future to appear before the grand jury, according to sources familiar with the situation. 

Many had believed and hoped that the investigation had slowed or even halted, as they hadn’t heard from the DOJ for weeks after meeting their subpoena document deadlines, multiple sources said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is appointing longtime Justice Department prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee investigations into former President Donald Trump.

His probes will center on the retention of national defense information at former Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and parts of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

Garland described Smith as a veteran attorney who began a decades-long prosecutorial career in New York in the mid-1990s. He is a former acting US attorney in Tennessee and once led the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which handles election crimes and public corruption investigations.

Most recently, Smith served as a chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague, where he investigated and adjudicated war crimes in Kosovo.

Smith will begin his work as special counsel immediately and will return to the United States soon from The Hague, Garland said.

The attorney general said Smith has “built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor, who leads teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead.”

Garland added that Smith will have independent prosecutorial judgment to decide whether charges should be brought in either investigation.

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said his decision to appoint a special counsel was driven in part by former President Donald Trump’s announcement that he intends to run for president in 2024, as well as current President Joe Biden saying he also intends to run.

“The Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Garland said before announcing the appointment of Justice Department prosecutor Jack Smith as special counsel.

“Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. Such an appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” he said.

Garland added:

“It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously and to make decisions undisputedly guided only by the facts and the law.”

In the weeks leading up to the midterm election, the Justice Department observed the traditional quiet period of not making any overt moves that may have political consequences.

But behind the scenes, investigators remained busy, using aggressive grand jury subpoenas and secret court battles to compel testimony from witnesses in both the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his alleged mishandling of national security documents kept at his Palm Beach home.

Federal investigators have been planning for a burst of post-election activity in Trump-related investigations. That includes the prospect of indictments of Trump’s associates – moves that could be made more complicated after Trump declared a run for the presidency on Tuesday.

“They can crank up charges on almost anybody if they wanted to,” said one defense attorney working on Jan. 6-related matters, who added defense lawyers have “have no idea” who ultimately will be charged.
“This is the scary thing,” the attorney said.

The Justice Department brought in a brain trust for high-level advice on the Trump investigations, according to people familiar with the moves.

Top Justice officials have looked to an old guard of former Southern District of New York prosecutors, bringing into the investigations Kansas City-based federal prosecutor and national security expert David Raskin, as well as David Rody, a prosecutor-turned-defense lawyer who previously specialized in gang and conspiracy cases and has worked extensively with government cooperators.

Rody, whose involvement has not been previously reported, left a lucrative partnership at the prestigious corporate defense firm Sidley Austin in recent weeks to become a senior counsel at DOJ in the criminal division in Washington, according to his LinkedIn profile and sources familiar with the move.

The team at the DC US Attorney’s Office handling the day-to-day work of the Jan. 6 investigations is also growing – even while the office’s sedition cases against right-wing extremists go to trial.

A handful of other prosecutors have joined the Jan. 6 investigations team, including a high-ranking fraud and public corruption prosecutor who has moved out of a supervisor position and onto the team, and a prosecutor with years of experience in criminal appellate work now involved in some of the grand jury activity.

Taken together, the reorganization of prosecutors indicates a serious and snowballing investigation into Trump and his closest circles.

Read more here.

The White House was not involved in Attorney General Merrick Garland’s decision to appoint a special counsel, a White House official says.

“DOJ makes decisions about its criminal investigations independently, and we are not involved,” the official said, referring further questions to the Justice Department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to announce that he has appointed a special counsel to oversee investigations into former President Donald Trump.

You likely remember hearing this term during the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Here’s a refresher on what it means:

A special counsel is a lawyer appointed to lead an independent investigation and, if necessary, to prosecute anyone suspected of crimes.

A special counsel is typically appointed when the usual investigative bodies under the Justice Department, such as the FBI, have a conflict of interest in carrying out a probe.

The law states more broadly that the attorney general can appoint a special counsel under “extraordinary circumstances,” or when in it is in the public interest to do so.

The special counsel must come from outside the government, the idea being that he or she should have the greatest possible level of impartiality and be removed from the usual chain of command.

The law says that the counsel should be a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making.

According to multiple sources, both the Mar-a-Lago investigation and the Jan. 6 probe around former President Donald Trump are aiming to gather more information and bring witnesses before a grand jury in the coming weeks.

Prosecutors sent out several new subpoenas related to both investigations in recent days, with quick return dates as early as next week.

Some of the witnesses being pursued in this round had not spoken to the investigators in these cases before, according to some of the sources.

Former President Donald Trump’s team had been discussing in recent days the likelihood that the Justice Department would appoint a special counsel to oversee the investigation into his handling of documents upon leaving office, multiple sources familiar with the talks told CNN. 

Trump’s lawyers had been dreading the prospect, concerned it could drag out the investigation they have fought continuously in court. And Trump himself has complained about the matter, likening the prospect to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who oversaw the Russia investigation. 

Former President Donald Trump has a slew of lawsuits against him.

Here are the two ongoing Justice Department investigations looking into aspects of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

2020 Election: Fake GOP electors

The Justice Department is looking at an aspect of a plot to put forward fake GOP electors from seven states.

Fake certificates were created by Trump allies in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico as they sought to replace valid presidential electors from their states with a pro-Trump slate.

2020 election and Jan. 6

The Justice Department has an investigation of its own into the post-2020 election period.

While the DOJ has not acted publicly during the so-called quiet period leading up to the midterms, a grand jury in Washington has been hearing from witnesses.

Recently, the DOJ moved to compel additional testimony from former White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin.

Trump has been fighting to keep former advisers from testifying about certain conversations, citing executive and attorney-client privileges to keep information confidential or slow down criminal investigators.

The Justice Department investigation continues into whether documents from the White House were illegally mishandled when they were brought to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after he left office. A federal grand jury in Washington has been empaneled and has interviewed potential witnesses to how Trump handled the documents.

In August, the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as part of an investigation into the handling of presidential documents, including classified documents, that may have been brought there.

The National Archives, charged with collecting and sorting presidential material, had previously said that at least 15 boxes of White House records were recovered from Mar-a-Lago, including some classified records.

Any unauthorized retention or destruction of White House documents could violate a criminal law that prohibits the removal or destruction of official government records, legal experts told CNN.

Among the items seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago were clemency requests, health care documents, IRS forms and paperwork that appears to be related to the 2020 election, according to a Justice Department list that was made public.

The collection also included apparent communications about Trump’s business connections, including what’s described as a confidential settlement agreement between PGA and Trump Golf, as well as an email accepting Trump’s resignation from SAG, or the Screen Actors Guild.

Full details of the documents aren’t available but taken together, the list offers a glimpse into a handful of the thousands of documents Trump was keeping at his Florida residence and resort after his presidency, and which the FBI removed from the beach club.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland plans to announce Friday that he has appointed a special counsel to oversee investigations into the retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and key aspects of the criminal investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack, according to a senior Justice Department official.

Both investigations implicate the conduct of Trump, who on Tuesday declared his candidacy in the 2024 presidential race, making him a potential rival of President Biden.

Justice Department officials have been debating for weeks whether to appoint a special counsel, CNN previously reported.

Trump has sought to paint the investigations as politically motivated, including at his Tuesday presidential announcement, where he said he was the victim of a “weaponization” of the justice system.