"TRUMP BEATS CHARGES BEFORE SECOND TERM: SMITH RESIGNS AS SPECIAL COUNSEL"

Special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into former President Donald Trump has continued to hold significant political and legal weight through early 2025. Smith, who led two major federal cases against Trump—one involving alleged mishandling of classified documents in South Florida and another regarding election interference in Washington, D.C.—sought to bring serious criminal charges against the former president. Both cases were widely followed and deeply polarized.

In January 2025, just days before Trump’s swearing-in as the nation’s 47th president, Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the Department of Justice could publicly release a volume of Jack Smith’s final report focused on his election interference case, noting it did not impact the separate classified documents case against Trump’s co-defendants. Shortly after, the DOJ released Smith’s report, in which Smith laid out a comprehensive case. He stated that his team had gathered enough evidence to potentially convict Trump on multiple felony counts for efforts to unlawfully overturn the 2020 election results. However, the report was released on the cusp of Trump’s return to the White House. Smith had already announced his resignation as special prosecutor and submitted his final reports to outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Jack Smith’s resignation and his decisions to voluntarily dismiss the cases against Trump were influenced by Trump’s victory in the 2024 election and his impending second term. The classified documents report was split, with one portion focusing on Trump and another detailing evidence against his co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, who still faced ongoing prosecution at the time. Garland decided to withhold the classified documents report from public release, but allowed the election interference volume to be published before Trump’s inauguration.

After becoming president again, Trump swiftly moved to pardon more than 1,500 individuals charged with participating in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and commuted the sentences of a dozen others. He also vowed to end what he called the “weaponization of the government” and directed his new Attorney General to review law enforcement and intelligence activities from the prior administration.

Amid these developments, attention also turned to legal representation. Attorneys from Covington & Burling were providing pro bono counsel to Jack Smith, who had previously led the DOJ’s cases against Trump. Some actions by the Trump administration were seen as targeting these lawyers, drawing criticism and statements of opposition from legal advocacy groups.

In summary, Jack Smith’s investigations and final reports created important legal and political ripples, but Trump’s return to office and subsequent executive actions—including sweeping pardons—effectively brought closure to the federal prosecutions led by Smith. The release of Smith’s reports provided listeners with insight into the depth of the investigations and the evidence amassed, even as the political landscape shifted dramatically. Legal and public interest remains in the role of the judiciary, the fate of ongoing prosecutions involving Trump’s associates, and the broader implications for presidential accountability in the current administration[2][4][5].