U.S. special counsel investigating Trump resigns after submitting report

U.S. special counsel Jack Smith has resigned from the Justice Department after submitting his investigative report on president-elect Donald Trump, an expected move that comes amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead.

The department disclosed Smith's departure in a court filing Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions against Trump that were withdrawn following Trump's White House win in November.

At issue now is the fate of a two-volume report that Smith and his team had prepared about their twin investigations into Trump's efforts to overturn the results of his 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. 

The Justice Department had been expected to make the document public in the final days of the Biden administration, but the Trump-appointed judge who presided over the classified documents case granted a defence request to at least temporarily halt its release. Two of Trump's co-defendants in that case, Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, had argued that the release of the report would be unfairly prejudicial, an argument that the Trump legal team joined in.

The department responded by saying that it would withhold from public release the classified documents volume as long as criminal proceedings against Nauta and De Oliveira remain pending. Though U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the case last July, a Smith team appeal of that decision related to the two co-defendants remained pending.

But prosecutors said they intended to proceed with the release of the election interference volume. 

In an emergency motion late Friday, they asked the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to swiftly lift an injunction from Cannon that had barred them from releasing any portion of the report. They separately told Cannon on Saturday that she had no authority to halt the release of the report, but she responded with an order directing prosecutors to file an additional brief by Sunday. 

The appeals court on Thursday night denied an emergency defence bid to block the release of the election interference report, which covers Trump's efforts before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, to undo the results of the 2020 election. But it left in place Cannon's injunction that said none of the findings could be released until three days after the matter was resolved by the appeals court. 

The Justice Department told the appeals court in its emergency motion that Cannon's order was "plainly erroneous."

"The attorney general is the Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice and is vested with the authority to supervise all officers and employees of the department," the Justice Department said. "The attorney general thus has authority to decide whether to release an investigative report prepared by his subordinates."

Justice Department regulations call for special counsels to produce reports at the conclusion of their work, and it's customary for such documents to be made public no matter the subject.

William Barr, attorney general during Trump's first term, released a special counsel report examining Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and potential ties to the Trump campaign.

Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, has also released special counsel reports, including about Biden's handling of classified information before Biden became president.