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JackSmith
Photo: Jerry Lamps/AP
The special counsel against Donald Trump is flown in from The Hague.
For years, Jack Smith has worked in the Dutch city as chief prosecutor at the special tribunal on war crimes in Kosovo.
Now the experienced lawyer is getting a post in his home country with enormous political explosive power: As a special investigator, Smith will take over the US judiciary's investigations into former President Trump - two years before the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump wants to run again.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland commissioned Smith on Friday to investigate the secret service documents confiscated from Trump's private home Mar-a-Lago and also - in part - to the Capitol storming of January 6, 2021.
"Mr. Smith will begin his work as a special counsel immediately and return to the United States from The Hague," Garland said at a short-notice press conference.
"Throughout his career, Jack Smith has built a reputation as an impartial and determined prosecutor who leads his teams with energy and focus to follow the facts wherever they lead."
"Under my leadership, the pace of the investigation will not pause or slow down"
In a first statement, Smith promised independent, quick and thorough investigations.
"Under my leadership, the pace of the investigation will not pause or slow down."
The pressure is on: Smith's investigation will ultimately determine whether ex-President Trump can be formally charged and indicted.
A so-called Special Counsel had already dealt with Trump once before: Former FBI chief Robert Mueller investigated the so-called Russia affair from 2017.
In his almost two-year investigation, Mueller did not find sufficient evidence of illegal secret collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia before the 2016 elections. However, he expressly did not exonerate the president from suspected criminal obstruction of justice.
Trump cheered anyway, falsely claiming Mueller completely whitewashed him.
Many experts subsequently accused Mueller of not having pursued the investigation consistently enough and therefore to have failed.
Harvard graduate with international work experience
Smith can draw on extensive judicial experience in his investigations against Trump:
The graduate of the elite Harvard University began his career as a prosecutor in New York in the 1990s.
In 1999 he moved to one of the federal prosecutor's offices in the metropolis, where he worked for nine years.
In 2008, Smith went to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
He worked there for two years as an investigative coordinator, overseeing investigations into "foreign government officials and militias for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide," according to his official biography.
Smith then returned to the US Department of Justice for five years.
He later became a federal prosecutor in the southern state of Tennessee before crossing the Atlantic again in 2018 to work at the Kosovo Special Tribunal in The Hague.
The first trial against a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK) began there in September 2021. Smith spoke of a "milestone" at the time.
Smith is now taking on a post that will probably challenge him like no other office before, his work will be legally complex and politically complicated.
He's in the spotlight now and could face attacks from the Trump camp.
Shortly after Smith's appointment as special counsel, the ex-president complained that the move was "political" and "unfair".
dop/AFP