Who is Jack Smith, the special counsel who brought the Trump indictment?
Repeats story published late on Thursday
By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) -Jack Smith, the U.S. special counsel who has pursued criminal charges against former President Donald Trump over retention of classified government records, has earned a reputation for winning tough cases against war criminals, mobsters and crooked cops.
Appointed last November by Attorney General Merrick Garland to take over two Justice Department investigations involving Trump, Smith now has made history as the first federal prosecutor - though not the first prosecutor - to secure an indictment against a current or former U.S. president.
Manhattan District Attorney Bragg in April charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records involving hush money paid to a porn star before the 2016 U.S. election.
When Smith is not busy competing in Ironman swim-cycle-run triathlon races, according to his former colleagues, he is working as a dogged investigator who is open-minded and not afraid to pursue the truth. They described him as just as tenacious in seeking to have criminal charges dropped for the innocent as he is to win convictions of the guilty.
"If the case is prosecutable, he will do it," said Mark Lesko, an attorney at the firm Greenberg Traurig LLP who worked with Smith when both were prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York. "He is fearless."
This case is unlike any other that Smith has brought because of who is being charged. Trump served as president from 2017 to 2021 and is now seeking to return to the White House, leading a crowded field of candidates seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
One of the two investigations that Smith took over involved Trump's handling of classified documents he retained after leaving the White House in January 2021. The second examined efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. election that Trump lost including a plot to submit phony slates of electors to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory.
Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony from witnesses in recent months for both investigations.
Trump's own attorney Evan Corcoran emerged as a key witness in the documents investigation. Corcoran was compelled to testify before a grand jury in March after a federal judge ruled that his conversations with Trump were not shielded by a legal doctrine called attorney-client privilege - which protects the confidentiality of certain communications between lawyers and their clients - if Trump's comments were made in furtherance of a crime.
The election interference investigation - in which former Vice President Mike Pence and others who served in top roles in Trump's administration have been subpoenaed - remains ongoing.
SEARCH FOR INNOCENCE AND GUILT
Smith, a Harvard Law School grad who is not registered with any political party, started as a prosecutor in 1994 at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office under Robert Morgenthau, who was best known for prosecuting mob bosses.
"There was just a real emphasis, from Morgenthau on down, on not just going after convictions," said Todd Harrison, an attorney at the firm McDermott Will & Emery who worked with Smith in Morgenthau's office and later as a federal prosecutor.
"We were praised if we investigated something and demonstrated that the target of the investigation was innocent," Harrison added.
In 1999, Smith started working at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn.
Smith was involved in the prosecution of Charles Schwarz, one of several former New York City police officers who were implicated in a high-profile police brutality case involving Abner Louima, a jailed Black inmate who had been assaulted by police with a broomstick.
Smith also won a murder conviction against Ronell Wilson, a drug gang leader who murdered two undercover New York City police officers, though a federal appeals court vacated the death penalty verdict.
In 2008, Smith left to supervise war crime prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. He returned to the Justice Department in 2010 to head its Public Integrity Section until 2015.
More recently, Smith returned to war crimes cases in The Hague, winning the conviction of Salih Mustafa, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander who ran a prison where torture took place during the 1998-99 independence conflict with Serbia.
Trump charged with hush-money scheme to boost 2016 election chances ID:nL1N3670RJ
U.S. Justice Dept. names war crimes expert as special counsel for Trump probes ID:nL1N32E1TV
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; editing by Andy Sullivan and Will Dunham
면책조항: XM Group 회사는 체결 전용 서비스와 온라인 거래 플랫폼에 대한 접근을 제공하여, 개인이 웹사이트에서 또는 웹사이트를 통해 이용 가능한 콘텐츠를 보거나 사용할 수 있도록 허용합니다. 이에 대해 변경하거나 확장할 의도는 없습니다. 이러한 접근 및 사용에는 다음 사항이 항상 적용됩니다: (i) 이용 약관, (ii) 위험 경고, (iii) 완전 면책조항. 따라서, 이러한 콘텐츠는 일반적인 정보에 불과합니다. 특히, 온라인 거래 플랫폼의 콘텐츠는 금융 시장에서의 거래에 대한 권유나 제안이 아닙니다. 금융 시장에서의 거래는 자본에 상당한 위험을 수반합니다.
온라인 거래 플랫폼에 공개된 모든 자료는 교육/정보 목적으로만 제공되며, 금융, 투자세 또는 거래 조언 및 권고, 거래 가격 기록, 금융 상품 또는 원치 않는 금융 프로모션의 거래 제안 또는 권유를 포함하지 않으며, 포함해서도 안됩니다.
이 웹사이트에 포함된 모든 의견, 뉴스, 리서치, 분석, 가격, 기타 정보 또는 제3자 사이트에 대한 링크와 같이 XM이 준비하는 콘텐츠 뿐만 아니라, 제3자 콘텐츠는 일반 시장 논평으로서 "현재" 기준으로 제공되며, 투자 조언으로 여겨지지 않습니다. 모든 콘텐츠가 투자 리서치로 해석되는 경우, 투자 리서치의 독립성을 촉진하기 위해 고안된 법적 요건에 따라 콘텐츠가 의도되지 않았으며, 준비되지 않았다는 점을 인지하고 동의해야 합니다. 따라서, 관련 법률 및 규정에 따른 마케팅 커뮤니케이션이라고 간주됩니다. 여기에서 접근할 수 있는 앞서 언급한 정보에 대한 비독립 투자 리서치 및 위험 경고 알림을 읽고, 이해하시기 바랍니다.
