- Jack Smith — a veteran prosecutor — has been chosen to oversee criminal investigations involving Donald Trump.
- US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that he appointed Smith as special counsel.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Friday that he has chosen Jack Smith — a veteran prosecutor who investigated war crimes — to oversee federal criminal investigations involving Donald Trump, including the probe into the former president's handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Smith, who was appointed as the special counsel, will also preside over key aspects of the investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Since 2018, Smith had served as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague where he investigated war crimes in Kosovo.
He is slated to begin his work as special counsel immediately, according to the Department of Justice.
Smith's prosecutorial career began nearly three decades ago when he started as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney's Office in 1994.
Five years later, Smith became an assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, which oversees cases in Long Island and Staten Island, where he prosecuted crimes like the gang murders of police officers and civil rights violations for nine years.
Smith served with the International Criminal Court from 2008 to 2010 and it was there where he supervised all war crimes investigations conducted by the Office of the Prosecutor.
Smith returned to the Justice Department in 2010 to serve as the chief of the Public Integrity Section. There he led a team of more than 30 prosecutors who handled public corruption and election crimes cases across the United States.
In 2015, Smith served as the first assistant US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee and later became the acting US attorney.
Smith served as the vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America — the nation's biggest non-governmental healthcare provider — from 2017 to 2018.
He's registered to vote as an independent.