Attorney General Merrick Garland will appoint a Special Counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump three months after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home. A Special Counsel will also investigate Trump for January 6 after congressional Democrats lost control of the U.S. House in the 2022 midterm elections. The partisan January 6 subcommittee is expected to be disbanded.
Garland detailed the decision from the Department of Justice Friday afternoon and named former DOJ official Jack Smith for the position. President Donald Trump tells Fox News he will not participate in the probes.
“Based on recent developments, including the former President’s announcement that he is a candidate for President in the next election, and the sitting President’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel,” Garland said. “Such an appointment underscores the Department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters. It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland: "I'm here today to announce the appointment of special counsel in connection with two ongoing criminal investigations that have received significant public attention." pic.twitter.com/9wrNQUy3pt
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 18, 2022
"I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice," Smith released in a statement after the announcement. "The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. I will exercise independent judgement and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”
The announcement comes just one day after the Washington Post reported allegations from DOJ that Trump was illegally keeping classified information at his Mar-a-Lago estate for nefarious purposes aren't panning out.
"FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property," the paper reports. "The people familiar with the matter cautioned that the investigation is ongoing, that no final determinations have been made, and that it is possible additional information could emerge that changes investigators’ understanding of Trump’s motivations. But they said the evidence collected over a period of months indicates the primary explanation for potentially criminal conduct was Trump’s ego and intransigence."
Trump officially jumped into the 2024 presidential race earlier this week, forcing Garland to make a decision about how to proceed. A Special Counsel gives the Department of Justice some distance given Trump is now officially a political opponent of President Joe Biden.
AG Garland says he's appointing a special counsel due to recent developments, including "the former president's announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president's stated intention to be a candidate as well." pic.twitter.com/wgubwleKbJ
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 18, 2022
This story has been updated with additional information.