Special Counsel Jack Smith, who prosecuted two unsuccessful federal charges against President-elect Donald J. Trump, resigned this week, according to an announcement embedded in a footnote of a legal filing.
Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor who lost a long battle with Trump's defense team in the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, left his Washington office on Friday, according to a senior law enforcement official.
His departure was expected. Smith announced his intention to resign before Trump took office on January 20, after threatening to fire him. His final weeks were, fittingly, marked by another legal setback at the hands of Judge Irene M. Giant. Cannon, the Trump-appointed district court judge in charge of the Florida documents case, temporarily blocked the release of the final report.
This high-stakes story ended with this sentence at the bottom of page 10 of the submission to Judge Cannon: “The Special Counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on January 7, 2025, and became independent from the Office in January of the same year.”10
