Special counsel Jack Smith resigned resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his report on President-elect Trump amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public. The resignation comes after two unsuccessful prosecutions of Trump that were withdrawn when Trump won the presidential election, the Associated Press reports. Smith and his team prepared the report about the investigations into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The Justice Department had been expected to make the document public this month but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the documents case granted a defense request to halt its release. Two Trump’s co-defendants, valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial.
Though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the case last July, a Smith team appeal of that decision related to the two co-defendants remained pending. Prosecutors have asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to lift an injunction from Cannon that had barred them from releasing any portion of the report. The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon’s order was “plainly erroneous.” DOJ said the Attorney General "has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates.”
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