Special counsel Jack Smith, who led the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump, resigned from the Justice Department days before the president-elect begins his second term in the White House.

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According to a court filing on Saturday (Jan 11), Smith resigned on Friday (Jan 10) from the Department of Justice. Smith completed and submitted his final confidential report on January 7. He was leading federal charges against the president-elect for trying to interfere in the outcome of the 2020 elections and mishandling confidential documents.

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Smith’s exit from the department comes amid the dispute over the release of the report detailing the findings of Trump's classified documents investigation. His departure could mean the end of Trump’s criminal prosecutions without any legal consequences.

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The resignation would allow Smith to leave his position without being fired by Trump’s administration or the next attorney general of the president.

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Who is Jack Smith?

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Born in June 1969, Smith grew up in Clay, New York. He graduated from the State University of New York at Oneonta in 1991 before attending Harvard Law School. 

In the 1990s, Smith was a prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office and soon moved to a similar job at the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn. Over the next decade, he rose to a series of supervisory positions, including chief of criminal litigation, overseeing dozens of prosecutors pursuing cases involving gangs, violent crime, financial fraud and public corruption. 

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In 2018, he was appointed chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Smith as special prosecutor overseeing the two federal investigations days after Trump announced he would again run for president. 

Smith and his team investigated the case for over seven months and interviewed former White House officials, Trump aides and Florida-based Mar-a-Lago staff in the classified documents investigation.

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US District Judge Aileen Cannon had temporarily blocked the release of the report by Smith and Garland until a higher appeals court intervened and considered an emergency appeal from Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveir, attorneys for Trump's former co-defendants. Trump’s attorneys have earlier argued that Smith was politically motivated.

On Friday (Jan 10), Trump became the first US president with a felony conviction after a judge sentenced him to an “unconditional discharge” in a criminal case related to hush money payments.

(With inputs from agencies)