The US Justice appoints a special prosecutor to investigate Trump

The Secretary of Justice and Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, announced this Friday that he will appoint Jack Smith as an independent prosecutor to carry out the various investigations opened against former president and presidential candidate Donald Trump. Smith is a prosecutor and has served as a judge at the international court in The Hague, where he has investigated war crimes.

“I will exercise independent judgment and advance investigations expeditiously and thoroughly to the outcome as dictated by the facts and the law,” Smith said in a statement issued by the Department.

Special counsel are semi-independent prosecutors who, under Justice Department rules, can be appointed for high-level investigations where there may be a conflict of interest, or the appearance of one. They exercise greater autonomy on a day-to-day basis than regular United States attorneys, but are ultimately still subject to the control of the attorney general.

As published by the US press, Trump’s announcement this week that he will run for a third presidential election in 2024 -if no other Republican candidates concur, in which case there would be primaries- has precipitated events. The fact that Biden has indicated, in turn, that he will most likely run for president again has also had an influence.

Trump supporters have already accused the Justice Department under the Biden Administration of investigating Trump for political reasons, and some Republicans have floated the idea of ​​impeaching Garland if he brings charges against him.

The situation will not be new for Trump. While at the White House, he already faced investigation by a special counsel. Former FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III discussed the nature of various links between his 2016 campaign and Russia. The investigation was falsely closed after Mueller concluded that Trump did not conspire with Kemlin to get into the Oval Office.

The tycoon faces several legal fronts. The first investigation concerns Trump’s attempts to bust the election results that two years ago gave Joe Biden the presidency of the country. The second is to analyze the management of confidential documents during his time at the White House and why he took dozens of reports considered “top secret” to his Florida mansion after leaving office. Once the mid-term elections are over, the investigators expect to multiply the subpoenas of Trump’s associates and former advisers and do not rule out that charges will occur.