Jack Smith, Who Led Prosecutions of Trump, Resigns

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

61% : The monumental legal saga, which embittered Trump and steeled him for his remarkable return to power, ended with a single line at the bottom of the last page of a brief sent to Cannon on Saturday: "The special counsel completed his work and submitted his final confidential report on Jan. 7, 2025, and separated from the department on Jan. 10."Smith's resignation left unfinished one last step in the more than two-year odyssey he undertook by investigating and ultimately bringing charges against Trump: the release of a two-volume report detailing his decision-making in both criminal cases.
49% : Around the same time, the Supreme Court hobbled the election interference case in a landmark ruling that granted Trump a broad form of immunity for official acts he took as president.
43% : The report amounts to Smith's valedictory word on the work he started when he was first appointed in November 2022, shortly after Trump announced he was running again for president.
43% : While Smith's deputies appealed that ruling, they dropped the challenge where Trump was concerned after he was reelected, but not against his two co-defendants.
42% : "I defeated deranged Jack Smith, he's a deranged individual," Trump told reporters in Florida this past week.
41% : Attorney General Merrick Garland placed Smith in charge of the cases after Trump announced his plans to run for president in order to put some distance between the inquiries and the Justice Department.
39% : The two investigations of Trump were initially conducted by regular federal prosecutors.
39% : He granted no interviews and kept a low profile -- appearing before reporters only briefly to read short statements affirming his intention to investigate Trump fairly and quickly.
33% : Under a Justice Department policy prohibiting the pursuit of prosecutions against a sitting president, Smith was compelled to drop both of the cases he had filed against Trump in 2023 -- one in Florida, accusing him of mishandling a trove of classified documents, and the other in Washington, on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
31% : Smith had signaled his intention to leave before Trump, who had threatened to fire and punish him, took office on Jan. 20.
29% : Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor who fought a bitter and protracted battle on two fronts with the Trump legal team but lost in both a district court and in the Supreme Court shaped by Trump, left his offices in Washington on Friday, according to a senior law enforcement official.
17% : Three of the Trump team lawyers he opposed have been given top positions in the Justice Department and the White House by Trump, who has repeatedly suggested that those who put him in the criminal dock should face consequences.

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