And so it ended for special counsel Jack Smith: Not with the glorious sunset ride of a conquering hero his supporters had hoped for, but a 24-word footnote indicating he had “separated from the Justice Department,” his final report in limbo, and gleeful allies of Donald Trump exhorting him to “lawyer up.”
It was the undignified end of a painful process — for Smith and the nation — one that began with Trump at the nadir of his influence and ended with him surging back to the White House, crushing the criminal cases that once seemed certain to land him in prison.
Trump is now in a position not only to stamp out Smith’s work but to turn the tools of the Justice Department and a Republican-controlled Congress on his former pursuers, and to use his powers of clemency to rewrite the history of the harrowing events that led to his criminal charges in the first place.
Smith, who Garland hired right after the 2022 midterms and Trump announced his 2024 reelection bid, is about to find himself the most scrutinized man in a GOP-run Washington. Lawmakers loyal to Trump have vowed to use their oversight powers to delve deep under the hood of his investigations, which led to two federal criminal cases against the once and future president. Those probes resulted in dozens of felony charges against Trump — and cost $35 million through March 2024, a number that has likely climbed significantly since.
Smith’s charges included allegations that Trump criminally conspired to disenfranchise millions of voters and pressure government officials — including his own vice president Mike Pence — to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Those efforts, Smith was prepared to argue in trial, culminated with the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by thousands of Trump’s supporters.
In a separate case in Florida, Smith also leveled allegations that Trump jeopardized national security by hoarding highly classified military secrets at Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.
Prosecutors dropped both cases against Trump after he prevailed in November, citing their longstanding policy against charging a sitting president.
Now, even Smith’s effort to inform the public about his findings seems in jeopardy. At the urging of Trump and two co-defendants, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — who presided over the classified documents case — has blocked Attorney General Merrick Garland from publicly releasing Smith’s report, even the portion that had nothing to do with her case. A tangle of ensuing court proceedings has only muddled the picture further.
That could result in the once unthinkable prospect that a trove of Smith’s findings — those that haven’t already been made public in court filings and indictments — may never see the light of day or could be bottled up indefinitely.
The scrutiny and second-guessing of Smith’s work — and the strategic decisions by Garland, the man who appointed him — will now be as much a Washington preoccupation as the probe itself once was.
But Smith’s quiet departure underscored an age-old Washington truism: no matter what principles of law or politics or justice are at stake, all that really matters is winning.
Had Trump lost, his first public interaction with Pence in years may have been across a courtroom rather than over an awkward handshake at President Jimmy Carter’s funeral on Thursday. And Trump would have been staring down the prospect of spending the rest of his life fighting criminal cases.
Instead, in just nine days, Trump will retake the most powerful office in the world. And the man who might have stopped him? A footnote.