Jerry Lamps/AP
Prosecutor Jack Smith listens to the Kosovo Specialist Chambers court in The Hague, Netherlands, Nov. 9, 2020.
CNN
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The month-long investigation by special counsel Jack Smith into Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents has entered a new chapter with the indictment of the former president on seven charges.
Jim Trusty, the former president’s lawyer, told CNN Thursday that Trump faces an indictment under the Espionage Act, as well as charges of obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and perjury. statement. The former president wrote to Truth Social that the Justice Department informed him that he was indicted and that he was “summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 p.m.”
The special counsel declined to comment Thursday night.
Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland, was tasked in November with looking into whether Trump or his aides committed crimes by bringing classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago resort after he left the White House and whether they obstructed the investigation. The investigation has intensified in recent weeks with several high-profile interviews and a former White House official telling prosecutors that Trump knew the proper process for declassifying documents. and followed through on it at times while in office, undermining Trump’s claims that he automatically declassified everything he took. with him at Mar-a-Lago. Earlier this week, CNN reported that the Justice Department notified the former president’s legal team that he was a target of investigation — such an announcement is always a strong sign that an impeachment may follow. charge.
Trump has denied wrongdoing. He and his right-wing allies have criticized the investigation as partisan and a weapon of the federal government.
“The corrupt Biden Administration informed my lawyers that I was being indicted, apparently for the Boxes Hoax,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Smith, who also oversaw the DOJ’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, however, investigated members of both parties, handling some of the highest-profile political corruption cases in recent memory – of mixed results.
The special counsel’s experience ranged from prosecuting a sitting US senator to bringing charges against gang members who were ultimately convicted of murdering New York police officers. His career spanned several stints at the Justice Department and international courts, which until his appointment allowed him to maintain a relatively low profile in the often brassy legal industry.
After serving as a prosecutor at the local and federal levels as well as a stint at the International Criminal Court, Smith oversaw corruption cases as chief of the Justice Department’s public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015.
Smith was the head of the section when the department failed to convict former senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, a Democrat, in a corruption case in 2012 and when Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, was indicted in 2014. He also oversaw the investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican, who closed the investigation in 2010 without bringing charges.
Smith will continue to serve as an assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, taking over as acting US attorney in early 2017. He became vice president of litigation for Hospital Corporation of America later that year.
In recent years, Smith has lived outside the United States as the chief prosecutor of the special court in The Hague, a role he assumed in 2018 where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.
This story has been updated with additional information.