Jack Smith (special counsel)

Jack Smith studied at the State University of New York at Oneonta and graduated from Harvard Law School. He began his career as a prosecutor in the 1990s, serving five years as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, including in its sex crimes and domestic violence units, and then nine years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where his posts included chief of criminal litigation and deputy chief of the criminal division.⁠[1][2]

From 2008 to 2010 he was an investigation coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.⁠[1][2]

From 2010 to 2015 he was chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which handles corruption and election crimes.⁠[1][2]

From February 2015 to August 2017 he was First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee and also served as Acting U.S. Attorney. From September 2017 he was vice president and head of litigation at Hospital Corporation of America.⁠[1]

On May 7, 2018, he succeeded David Schwendiman as Specialist Prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, serving until November 18, 2022. During his tenure the trial of Salih Mustafa opened in 2021, and in 2022 Mustafa was convicted of murder and torture connected with a jail run by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).⁠[1][2]

On November 18, 2022, Attorney General Merrick GarlandMerrick GarlandMerrick Garland (born 1952) is an American lawyer and judge who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1997 to 2021 and as the 86th Attorney General of the United States from 2021 to 2025.Open the full entry appointed him special counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice by Order No. 5559-2022 to oversee two ongoing criminal investigations: one into whether any person violated the law in connection with efforts to interfere with the lawful transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the electoral vote on January 6, 2021, and the other described in the government’s August 30, 2022, filing in Trump v. United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry. The order authorized him to prosecute federal crimes arising from these investigations and made 28 C.F.R. §§ 600.4–600.10 applicable.⁠[3][4][5]

He signed his oath of office (SF 61) on November 20, 2022; because the original lacked a witness signature, on the advice of the Office of General Counsel the oath was readministered and a new SF 61 was executed on September 14, 2023.⁠[6]

On June 8, 2023, the Special Counsel’s Office filed the indictment in United States v. Donald J. Trump and Waltine Nauta, and he delivered a statement on June 9; on July 27, 2023, the office filed a superseding indictment that added Carlos De Oliveira as a defendant.⁠[5][7]

On August 1, 2023, the Special Counsel’s Office filed the indictment in United States v. Donald J. Trump, and he delivered a statement the same day; on August 27, 2024, the office filed a superseding indictment in the case.⁠[5]

On January 7, 2025, he submitted a two-volume final report with appendices to the Attorney General; in a letter of January 8 to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, Attorney General Merrick Garland stated that the Special Counsel had concluded his investigation. On January 10 he separated from the Justice Department.⁠[7][8]

On January 14, 2025, after a court order temporarily barring release had expired, Garland transmitted Volume One (the election case) to Congress and made it public; Volume Two was withheld from public release while the criminal proceedings against Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira remained ongoing.⁠[9][5]

U.S. Department of Justice (archived page of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office): Web page: https://www.justice.gov/sco-smith (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Kosovo Specialist Chambers & Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (Jack Smith profile): Web page: https://www.scp-ks.org/en/spo/jack-smith (opens in a new window).⁠[1]