US: Special counsel Jack Smith, who led Donald Trump's prosecutions, resigns

Washington, DC [US], January 12 : Jack Smith, the special counsel who led two failed federal prosecutions against US President-elect Donald Trump, resigned this week, the New York Times reported citing a footnote buried in court papers.
Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor fought a bitter battle with Trump's legal team on two fronts, but lost in both district court and the Supreme Court. Jack Smith left his offices in Washington on Friday, the report stated citing a senior law enforcement official.
Smith had indicated his intention to leave before Trump, who had threatened to fire and punish him, taking office on January 20.
However, he made no formal announcement regarding his resignation while his spokesperson had no comment. The special counsel's resignation comes after his efforts in the courtroom were essentially rendered moot by Trump's election win in November.
Under a US Justice Department policy that forbids the pursuance of prosecutions against a sitting president, Smith was forced to drop both the cases he had filed against Trump in 2023 -- one in Florida, accusing him of mishandling classified documents, and the other in Washington, on charges of planning to overturn the 2020 election, according to The New York Times report.
Jack Smith's final week was marked by another legal setback, as Judge Aileen M Cannon, the Trump-appointed jurist presiding over the Florida documents case, temporarily blocked the public release of his final report until at least Monday.
Earlier in July, Judge Cannon dismissed the classified documents in a ruling that -- against decades of precedent -- Smith had been unlawfully appointed to his position as special counsel. While deputies of Smith appealed against the decision, they dropped the challenge where Trump was concerned after he was re-elected as US President but not against his two co-defendants, the New York Times report.
Around the same time, the US Supreme Court hobbled the election interference case a ruling that gave Trump immunity for official acts he took as president. The ruling not only raised questions in many of the allegations made in Smith's indictment but made it impossible to hold a trial on the charges before the election.
Earlier this week, the US Justice Department said it did not want to immediately release the volume of Smith's report regarding the classified documents case as the prosecution of Trump's former co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, continued.
The US Justice Department said it planned to show that part of the report in private to Congress members and make it public only when all of the proceedings against the two men were completed. It plans to release the volume regarding the election interference case at the earliest. However, Nauta and De Oliveira lawyers have asked Judge Cannon to extend her order blocking the report.