Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to make the decision on whether former President Donald Trump should be charged related to the Justice Department’s criminal investigations into him.
Garland announced during a Friday press conference at Main Justice that longtime DOJ veteran Jack Smith had been appointed special counsel. Smith is currently chief prosecutor at The Hague, where he has investigated war crimes in Kosovo.
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“I am here to announce the appointment of a special counsel in connection with two ongoing criminal investigations that have received significant public attention,” Garland said. “The first… is the investigation into whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote… The second is the ongoing investigation involving classified documents and other presidential records as well as the possible obstruction of that investigation.”
The specter of criminal charges against Trump reemerged after Trump declared a 2024 presidential bid on Tuesday night, as the DOJ is investigating Trump related to the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, and separately conducted an unprecedented FBI raid of Trump’s Florida resort home of Mar-a-Lago in August.
Garland explicitly said that he was moved to appoint a special counsel after Trump announced he was running, as well as the fact that the current president, Joe Biden, 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 Friday. “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.”
Following Garland’s press conference, Smith released a statement.
“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 of 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.”
Trump was quick to release a statement of his own Friday, saying he would not cooperate with the special counsel, calling it “the worst politicization of justice in our country.”
“I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump told Fox News. “And I hope 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? It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”
Garland was also asked about appointing a special counsel in April in the context of Hunter Biden.
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“This is a fact and law question in each case, determining and depending upon how cases go forward, and a question of whether the Justice Department with its normal processes can — should continue. I want to be clear, though: Special counsels are also employees of the Justice Department,” Garland said. “The question of whether to have a special counsel is one that is internal decision-making of the department, so I don’t want to make any judgments one way or the other, but I’m quite comfortable with the United States attorney for that district continuing in the role that he is playing.”
Then-Attorney General William Barr rejected the idea of a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden in December 2020, but he now says Garland should grant those powers to U.S. Attorney David Weiss.
