Special prosecutor, formerly in charge of war crimes, appointed to investigate Trump

A decision made “in the interest of the public”.

The United States Minister of Justice has decided to appoint an independent prosecutor to oversee the investigations concerning Donald Trump, three days after his declaration of the presidential candidacy of 2024. Merrick Garland has decided to entrust this task, which could not be more sensitive, to Jack Smith , an experienced prosecutor, who headed the public integrity section of the Department of Justice in Washington, before becoming acting chief federal prosecutor in Nashville, Tennessee, under the Obama administration, details the agency AP .

He was also responsible for investigating war crimes.

The billionaire is currently the target of two separate federal justice investigations.

The first relates to the assault led by his supporters against the Capitol on January 6, 2021 at the time of the certification of the victory of his Democratic rival Joe Biden in the presidential election of 2020.

This sprawling investigation led to the indictment of nearly 900 people who directly participated in the violence.

But prosecutors have never ruled out looking at other actors.

"Everyone who is criminally responsible for efforts to nullify the election will have to answer for their actions," Merrick Garland has said repeatedly.

Intense legal battle

The second investigation relates to the archives of the White House.

Leaving the presidency, Donald Trump took entire boxes of documents.

However, a law of 1978 obliges any American president to transmit all of his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.

In January, he returned 15 boxes.

After examination, the federal police estimated that he probably kept others in his luxurious Mar-a-Lago, Florida residence.

FBI agents conducted a spectacular search there on August 8 on the basis of a warrant for “withholding classified documents” and “obstructing a federal investigation”, and seized around thirty other boxes.

Read alsoWhy Trump formalized his presidential candidacy

An intense legal battle then opened to determine the nature of the documents seized (classified? personal? declassified?) which slowed down the procedure but, here again, a federal indictment remains possible.

In the past, Donald Trump has already been the subject of an investigation supervised by a special prosecutor: Robert Mueller was tasked in 2017 with establishing whether there had been collusion between his campaign team and Russia.

After two years of investigation, he had judged not to have enough evidence of a plot between Moscow and the Trump team, but had noted a series of disturbing pressures exerted by the tenant of the White House on his investigation and was said to be unable to clear him of the suspicions of obstruction of justice.

The Minister of Justice at the time, Republican Bill Barr, however, did not consider it necessary to prosecute him.