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Special counsel Jack Smith resigned from his position at the Justice Department on Friday, Fox News has learned.
The resignation, which had been expected since President-elect Trump was elected in November, was quietly announced in a footnote to a court filing on Saturday.
“The Special Counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on January 7, 2025, and separated from the Department on January 10,” the memo said.
Smith was appointed by the Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to investigate the 2020 election interference case against Trump regarding January 6, as well as the Mar-a-Lago case of classified documents. In 2017, Smith served as acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee during the first Trump administration.
In November, special prosecutor Jack Smith asked to dismiss the charges he brought against Trump in a case over his interference in the certification of the 2020 election. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The news came as the country awaited the release of Smith’s report on the election interference case. A recent court document showed that Garland plans to release the investigative report soon, possibly before Trump takes office on January 20.
On Friday, a federal appeals court judge decided not to block release of Smith’s report.
“As I have made clear to all special counsels who have served since I took office, I am committed to making public as much of the special counsel’s report as possible, consistent with legal requirements and Department policy Garland wrote in a recent letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md.
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Jack Smith speaks during a press conference in Washington, DC in 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, Smith filed a motion to drop his cases against the president-elect. In late November, Smith asked a judge to drop the charges President-elect Donald Trump in the DC case against him.
Before asking to drop the case, Smith filed a motion leave all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against Trump in Washington, DC, a decision that was expected long after Trump’s victory. After dropping the cases, Trump responded to the move by arguing that the investigations “should never have been done.”
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The special counsel’s resignation comes as his report is scheduled to be released possibly before President-elect Trump takes office on January 20. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“These cases, like every other case I’ve been forced to go through, are hollow and lawless, and should never have been brought,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “It was a political hijacking, and a low point in our country’s History that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and I WON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
