The US Minister of Justice on Friday appointed an expert war crimes prosecutor “in the public interest” to independently investigate Donald Trump, three days after his declaration of the presidential candidacy of 2024.
Merrick Garland announced in a televised address that he had entrusted this extremely “sensitive” mission to Jack Smith, prosecutor based in The Hague for the Special Court for Kosovo.
“Given recent developments, including the former president’s announcement of his candidacy for the next presidential election and the current president’s intention to stand as a candidate, I have concluded that it is in the interest of the public that I appoint a special prosecutor,” he said.
Jack Smith immediately takes the lead in two separate investigations carried out for months by the federal justice: the first relates to the consequences of the presidential election of 2020, the second to the management by the ex-president of confidential documents supposed to be archived.
Prosecutor Smith, in a statement, immediately promised to act “quickly”, “independently” and “thoroughly”.
Knowing that Donald Trump should not fail to denounce politicized justice and a new “witch hunt”, Merrick Garland also insisted on the impartiality of the prosecutor.
“As a special prosecutor, he will exercise his professional judgment independently to decide whether there should be an indictment” in one or the other of these files, specified the minister.
The first series of investigations entrusted to Jack Smith relate to Donald Trump’s efforts to contest his defeat in the presidential election of 2020, until the assault led by his supporters against the Capitol on January 6, 2021, at the time of the certification of the victory of his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
This sprawling investigation has already led to the indictment of nearly 900 people who directly participated in the violence.
But prosecutors have never ruled out looking at other actors. “Everyone who is criminally responsible for efforts to nullify the election will have to answer for their actions,” Merrick Garland has said repeatedly in the past.
Intense legal battle
The second investigation relates to the archives of the White House.
Leaving the presidency, Donald Trump took entire boxes of documents. However, a law of 1978 obliges any American president to transmit all of his emails, letters and other working documents to the National Archives.
In January, he returned 15 boxes. After examination, the federal police estimated that he probably kept others in his luxurious residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
FBI agents carried out a spectacular search there on August 8 on the basis of a warrant for “withholding classified documents” and “obstructing a federal investigation”, and seized around thirty other boxes.
An intense legal battle then opened to determine the nature of the documents seized – classified, personal or declassified – which slowed down the procedure but, again, a federal indictment remains possible.
In the past, Donald Trump has already been the subject of an investigation supervised by a special prosecutor: Robert Mueller was charged in 2017 with establishing whether there had been collusion between his campaign team and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
After two years of investigation, he had judged not to have enough evidence of a plot between Moscow and the Trump team, but had noted a series of disturbing pressures exerted by the tenant of the White House on his investigation and was said to be unable to clear him of the suspicions of obstruction of justice.
The Minister of Justice at the time, Republican Bill Barr, however, did not consider it necessary to prosecute him.
During his tenure, Donald Trump was also the target of two impeachment trials: one, for “abuse of power”, concerned pressure exerted by the president on Ukraine to give him embarrassing elements for Joe Biden; the other for “inciting insurrection” in the attack on the Capitol. He was acquitted in both cases thanks to the Republican majority in the Senate.