The Smith special counsel investigation was a special counsel investigation into efforts by Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election of Joe Biden that was opened by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, to lead the independent investigations. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's mishandling of government records, including classified documents.
Smith moved quickly to advance his investigations, assembling a team of at least twenty DOJ prosecutors, and called witnesses for grand jury testimony, issued subpoenas to election officials in multiple states, and asked a federal judge to hold Trump in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena.
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury in the Southern Florida U.S. District Court indicted Trump on 37 felony counts, including charges of willful retention of national security material, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy, relating to his removal and retention of presidential materials from the White House after his presidency ended. Thirty-one of the counts fell under the Espionage Act.
On August 1, 2023, a grand jury for the District of Columbia U.S. District Court issued a four-count indictment of Trump for conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18 of the United States Code, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, and conspiracy against rights under the Enforcement Act of 1870 for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January 6 Capitol attack.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both indictments. Trials were scheduled but never held.
On July 15, 2024, Trump-Appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents prosecution against Trump, siding with the former president's argument that Smith was unlawfully appointed.
On November 25, 2024, Smith announced that he was seeking to drop all charges against Donald Trump in the aftermath of Trump's victory in the 2024 United States presidential election. The Justice Department, by policy, does not prosecute sitting presidents of the United States.
Smith submitted his final report to the Justice Department on January 7, 2025, and resigned three days later. The part of the report about election obstruction was made public on January 14. The part about the mishandling of government records was not released at the same time because the Justice Department was still appealing the dismissal of charges against Trump's co-defendants in that case. The DOJ eventually dropped the cases against Trump's co-defendants on January 29, 2025.
Origin
On U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general, the DOJ opened multiple investigations into events during the closing weeks of the Trump presidency.
One investigation involved the people and events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol. In early 2022, the public became aware that the Justice Department was investigating the Trump fake electors plot.
In April 2022, the FBI opened the Arctic Frost investigation at its Washington Field Office to examine alleged efforts by Trump to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The investigation was opened with ASAC Timothy Thibault and ADIC Steven D'Antuono on the approval chain at the Washington Field Office, with additional approval from Attorney General Merrick Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate, and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The investigation issued 197 subpoenas seeking information about approximately 430 Republican individuals and entities, including requests to telecommunications companies for phone records of multiple Republican members of Congress covering January 4–7, 2021.
The investigation was transferred to Special Counsel Jack Smith's oversight in November 2022.
Investigation of mishandling of documents
Developments
December 2022 Smith asked Beryl Howell, chief judge of the DC District Court, to hold Trump in contempt for failure to fully comply with an August 2022 DOJ subpoena, as prosecutors suspected Trump may have withheld some documents subject to the subpoena; Howell declined to hold Trump in contempt, asking both parties to continue working toward a resolution.
On December 12, 2022, Jennifer Rodgers, a legal analyst for CNN, noted that DOJ (which had not yet charged Trump with a crime) would find it difficult to finish any hypothetical case before the 2024 presidential election. She said DOJ might prioritize charging Trump in the documents case given that a conviction might be reached more quickly than in the January 6 case.
Contractors hired by Trump in late 2022 found additional documents marked classified, and Trump attorneys gave them to the special counsel in December 2022.
2023
January
Smith hired Raymond Hulser, former chief of public integrity at DOJ, and David Harbach, who had previously led cases against a U.S. senator and a governor. A laptop and thumb drive belonging to a former Oval Office aide, Chamberlain Harris, were handed over. Harris had scanned some documents, consisting of Trump's travel schedules, onto her two devices, evidently unaware they were classified. The special counsel subpoenaed an empty manila folder marked "Classified Evening Briefing" that had been found by the contractors in Trump's Mar-a-Lago bedroom. The folder had been reported to the special counsel but wasn't handed over until it was subpoenaed. One of Trump's lawyers claimed in February that Trump had been using the empty folder to shield an annoying light at his bedside. Trump attorneys Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb testified before a grand jury. Corcoran had reportedly drafted a June 2022 letter, signed by Bobb, attesting that, in response to a subpoena, a diligent search was conducted and no classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago; however, thousands of documents, over a hundred of which had classified markings, were subsequently found in the August 2022 FBI search. Trump attorney Alina Habba also appeared before a grand jury. Habba did not represent Trump regarding the documents matter, but she had spoken about it on television.
On January 12, CNN reported that the investigators sought to learn who was paying the legal bills of subpoena recipients.
On January 26, Senate Intelligence Committee chair Mark Warner said the committee wanted to see the classified documents immediately (the ones found in Trump's and Biden's possession) and did not want to "wait until a special prosecutor blesses the intelligence committee's oversight".
On January 30, the two people who had been hired to search four locations in October 2022 for classified documents —Trump's Bedminster golf club, Trump Tower in New York, an office location in Florida and a storage unit in Florida — testified before a federal grand jury.
February In early February, the government offered to brief certain members of Congress—the leaders of the House and Senate, and the leaders of the intelligence committees—on the status of the classified documents investigation. It was also reported that more documents with classified markings had been found during a search of Mar-a-Lago "weeks" earlier, in the presence of Trump's legal team.
On February 16, former Trump national security advisor Robert O'Brien appeared before a grand jury. After being subpoenaed in both the documents investigation and the election investigation, he had tried to assert executive privilege to withhold some information. It was not immediately known before which grand jury he testified.
In February, Smith asked federal judge Beryl Howell in a sealed motion for approval to invoke the crime-fraud exception to pierce attorney-client privilege and compel Corcoran to produce documents and answer certain questions before the grand jury. The special counsel argued that Trump may have acted criminally by intentionally misleading his attorneys about his retention of classified materials. On March 17, Judge Howell ruled that DOJ had justified the crime-fraud exception, and she ordered Corcoran to testify again. Trump attorneys sought to block Corcoran's further testimony, but the DC Circuit Court of Appeals denied their appeal, and Corcoran testified on March 24. Subsequently, he recused himself—at least temporarily—from the Mar-a-Lago case, though he continued to represent Trump in the January 6 case. Under the witness advocate rule, lawyers who may be called as key witnesses are generally not supposed to represent clients at trial.
March CNN reported on March 16 that the special counsel had subpoenaed at least two dozen people at Mar-a-Lago, from resort staff to members of Trump's inner circle.
In mid-March, Trump aide Margo Martin appeared before the grand jury. She was asked about a supposed classified document about a potential military attack on Iran, as investigators had obtained an audio recording of Trump saying he possessed it. Subpoenas were subsequently issued to Trump and to another person who attended the recorded meeting. The subpoenas sought the supposed Iran document and all materials related to it, including any materials related to Milley, maps or invasion plans. Trump's legal team produced some subpoenaed materials but were unable to find the purported Iran document.
April The Washington Post reported on April 2 that investigators had obtained emails and texts of Molly Michael, a Trump White House and Mar-a-Lago aide, that provided a detailed account of movements at the resort during critical times. Investigators had come to suspect Trump had gone through boxes of documents after being subpoenaed, apparently to identify documents he sought to withhold. The Post also reported investigators were asking witnesses if Trump had shown any classified materials, including maps, to political donors.
ABC News reported on April 3 that multiple members of Trump's current and former Secret Service details had been subpoenaed for testimony in the documents case.
On April 13, former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell testified before a Smith grand jury regarding Trump's retention of classified materials. As Trump's acting DNI, Grenell declassified documents that Trump believed would delegitimize the Russia investigation. He remained in Trump's post-presidency circle of associates and had publicly defended Trump's documents retention.
On April 26, four Trump attorneys wrote Republican House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Turner that the Justice Department "should be ordered to stand down" from its classified documents investigation, and legislation enacted to transfer the inquiry to the US intelligence community, asserting it was a civil case rather than a criminal case.
May CNN reported on May 3 that in recent weeks new subpoenas had been issued to top Trump Organization employees, regarding the handling of Mar-a-Lago security footage after it had been subpoenaed in summer 2022, and conversations employees had about the footage. Matthew Calamari Sr. and his son Matthew Calamari Jr. were among several witnesses who testified before the grand jury investigating the mishandling of documents on May 4. Calamari Sr. is the longtime chief operating officer of the Trump Organization, primarily overseeing security operations for the company, while his son is a director of security. The footage reportedly captured Trump valet Walt Nauta and another Mar-a-Lago employee moving boxes out of a storage room, which Nauta told the FBI was at Trump's direction. Investigators had previously asked about a text message from Nauta to Calamari Sr. and subsequent conversations about the surveillance footage.