Connect with us

Politics

Who is special counsel Jack Smith, appointed to investigate Trump?

Source image: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/who-special-counsel-jack-smith-appointed-investigate-trump

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday he would appoint Jack Smith, a career prosecutor, to take the reins in the Justice Department’s ongoing probe into former President Trump.  

In the announcement, Garland said Smith was the right choice “to complete these matters in an even-handed and urgent manner” given his extensive prosecutorial history. The attorney general added the appointment wouldn’t slow the investigations into the former president, a sentiment Smith echoed in a statement.

“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 said. “The pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch.

“I will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

TRUMP SAYS HE ‘WON’T PARTAKE’ IN SPECIAL COUNSEL INVESTIGATION, SLAMS AS ‘WORST POLITICIZATION OF JUSTICE’

Jack Smith was appointed to serve as special counsel looking into two major Trump investigations.

Jack Smith was appointed to serve as special counsel looking into two major Trump investigations.
(Justice Department)

As part of the agreement to lead the investigations, Smith will depart his current role as the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague assigned with investigating war crimes committed during the Kosovo War during the late 1990s. The Hague is an intergovernmental panel that probes and prosecutes international crimes.

Before he joined The Hague as chief prosecutor in 2018, Smith was the vice president of litigation for the Tennessee-based Hospital Corporation of America, the largest private health care provider in the nation. He worked in the role at the company for less than a year, according to the Nashville Business Journal.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GARLAND NAMES SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE TRUMP ON MAR-A-LAGO DOCUMENTS, JAN. 6

Prior to working in the private sector, Smith worked in different prosecutorial roles in New York City and the Department of Justice (DOJ) outside a two-year stint between 2008 and 2010 he spent investigating war crimes for the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Smith’s prosecutorial career began in 1994 when he was selected to be the assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. In 1999, he was hired by the DOJ to serve as assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where he worked on a wide variety of investigations, including gang-related and civil rights-related cases.

A general view of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2019.

A general view of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, in 2019.
(Reuters/Eva Plevier/File Photo)

In 2010, Smith was hired to lead the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which specializes in public corruption and elections-related investigations.

In 2015, he was appointed the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee. He eventually became the acting U.S. attorney for the district before being hired by the Hospital Corporation of America.

TRUMP ELEVATES MAR-A-LAGO RAID BATTLE TO SUPREME COURT

During his time at the DOJ, he received both the Director’s Award and the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service.

Smith is a graduate of the State University of New York at Oneonta and, later, Harvard Law School.

Former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. The FBI raided Trump's home in August as part of a probe into his handling of classified documents after leaving office.

Former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. The FBI raided Trump’s home in August as part of a probe into his handling of classified documents after leaving office.
(Charles Trainor Jr./Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

According to the announcement Friday, Smith will be tasked with two criminal investigations involving Trump.

The first probe revolves around whether any person unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election. The second is related to Trump’s handling of classified documents and other presidential records after leaving the White House in early 2021, an investigation that led to an FBI raid at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home in southern Florida.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

“I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Friday after the DOJ announcement. “And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.

“I did nothing wrong.”

Fox News’ Kevin Ward contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/who-special-counsel-jack-smith-appointed-investigate-trump

Politics

Biden vetoes bill cancelling his $400 billion student loan handout, vows he’s ‘not going to back down’

President Biden on Wednesday vetoed the bill that would have scrapped his $400 billion student loan handout and vowed he wasn’t “going to back down” when it came to forgiving the college debt of millions across the country.

“Folks, Republican in Congress led an effort to pass a bill blocking my administration’s plan to provide up to $10,000 in student debt relief and up to $20,000 for borrowers that received a Pell Grant. Nearly 90% of those relief dollars go to people making less than $75,000 a year,” Biden said in a video posted on Twitter

“I’m not going to back down on my efforts to help tens of millions of working and middle class families. That’s why I’m going to veto this bill,” he said. 

AOC SAYS SUPREME COURT ‘CORRUPTION’ WILL KILL BIDEN STUDENT LOAN HANDOUT

Amid his railing against Republicans, Biden made no mention of the two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Jon Tester, D-Mont., who joined all Republicans in voting to advance the bill last week. Independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema also voted in favor with the final tally coming to 52-46.

Biden also made no mention of Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., who joined Republicans in voting for the bill in the House of Representatives. The final House vote tally was 218-203.

The president went on to say that some of the members who voted for the bill had “personally received loans to keep their small business afloat during the pandemic,” and supported “huge tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” 

CHRIS CHRISTIE RIPS ‘JUVENILE,’ ‘BABY’ TRUMP AFTER FORMER PRESIDENT TARGETS HIM WITH FAT JOKES: ‘LIKE A CHILD’

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden speaks ahead of vetoing a bill scrapping his $400 billion student loan handout on June 7, 2023 in the Oval Office. (White House)

“But when it comes to hardworking Americans trying to get ahead, dealing with student debt relief, that’s where they drew the line. I think it’s wrong,” he said.

“Let me make something really clear, I’m never going to apologize for helping working and middle class Americans as they recover from this pandemic. Never,” he added before signing his veto of the bill.

Biden’s veto of the bill marks his fifth veto since taking office.

Under the program announced last year, Biden said he would cancel up to $10,000 in student loans for people making less than $125,000, and up to $20,000 for students who received Pell Grants. That program was expected to cost the government more than $400 billion in lost debt repayment, but the program was put on hold after a court blocked it.

BIDEN JOINS AOC IN LINKING CANADIAN WILDFIRES TO ‘CLIMATE CRISIS’

US Capitol Washington DC

The U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)

The resolution approved by the House and Senate was written under the Congressional Review Act, which lets Congress reject an executive branch policy as long as both the House and Senate pass a resolution disapproving of that policy.

Given the mostly partisan nature of the votes in the House and Senate, it’s unlikely Congress will be able to find the two-thirds majority needed in each chamber to override Biden’s veto.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Fox News’ Peter Kasperowicz contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Politics

Michigan man pleads guilty to assisting Whitmer kidnapping scheme

A man accused of aiding a plot to kidnap Michigan’s governor pleaded guilty Wednesday, the ninth conviction in state and federal courts since agents broke up an astonishing scheme by anti-government rebels in 2020.

Shawn Fix said he provided material support for an act of terrorism, namely the strategy to snatch Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at her vacation home in Antrim County. Prosecutors agreed to drop a weapon charge.

Fix trained with a militia, the Wolverine Watchmen, for “politically motivated violence,” prosecutors have said, and hosted a five-hour meeting at his Belleville home where there was much discussion about kidnapping Whitmer.

MICHIGAN MAN CHARGED WITH AIDING WHITMER KIDNAPPING PLOT TO CHANGE PLEA

Fix, 40, acknowledged helping plot leader Adam Fox pinpoint the location of Whitmer’s home, key information that was used for a 2020 ride to find the property in northern Michigan.

“Guilty,” Fix told the judge.

Shawn Fix

Shawn Fix has pleaded guilty to his role in the planned kidnapping of Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. (AP Photo/John Flesher)

He appeared in an Antrim County court, one of five people charged in that leg of the investigation. A co-defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in March, leaving three other men to face trial in August.

Fix, who faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, agreed to testify if called by prosecutors.

The main kidnapping conspiracy case was handled in federal court, where four men, including ringleaders Fox and Barry Croft Jr., were convicted. Two others were acquitted.

WISCONSIN MAN CHARGED IN WHITMER KIDNAPPING PLOT TO CHANGE PLEA

Separately, three men were convicted at trial in Jackson County, the site of militia training, and are serving long prison terms.

Whitmer, a Democrat, was targeted as part of a broad effort by anti-government extremists to trigger a civil war around the time of the 2020 presidential election, investigators said. Her COVID-19 policies, which shut down schools and restricted the economy, were deeply scorned by foes.

But informants and undercover FBI agents were inside the group for months, leading to arrests in October 2020. Whitmer was not physically harmed.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

After the plot was thwarted, Whitmer blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” Last August, after 19 months out of office, Trump called the kidnapping plan a “fake deal.”

Continue Reading

Politics

Utah Rep. Chris Stewart to step down from Congress in September

U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, R-Utah, on Wednesday officially submitted his letter of resignation from Congress. 

In a letter to Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, Stewart said he would be stepping down as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives effective Sept. 15. 

Utah Rep. Chris Stewart addresses supporters at an election night party

FILE: Utah Rep. Chris Stewart talks to supporters during an Utah Republican election night party on June 28, 2022, in South Jordan, Utah.  (Photo/George Frey, File)

“It has been one of the great honors of my life to serve the good people of Utah in Congress,” Stewart said.

Stewart, a six-term lawmaker, announced his plans to leave Congress last month due to his wife’s illness. 

His resignation would leave open a Republican seat on the House Appropriations and Intelligence committees — and reduce an already narrow GOP majority to just four seats.

FBI WILLING TO ALLOW ALL HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE MEMBERS TO VIEW BIDEN DOC ALLEGING CRIMINAL SCHEME: SOURCE

Utah law states that the governor must call for a special election in the event of a House vacancy. Once Stewart makes his resignation official, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox will have seven days to set the time for a primary and special election. 

The law requires those dates to be the same as municipal primary and general elections scheduled for this year, unless the state legislature appropriates funds to hold a separate election.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Though Stewart’s departure will mean one less Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, it is not expected to affect House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ability to steer a tight Republican majority. 

The district is reliably Republican and Stewart defeated a Democratic challenger by more than 30 percentage points in 2022.

Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report. 

Continue Reading

Trending