Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith accepted $140,000 worth of free legal services in the last weeks before he resigned.
Smith ran two criminal investigations into Donald Trump, both of which were dropped after his election victory, as a sitting president can’t be prosecuted.
His office charged Trump with illegally retaining classified documents and conspiring to obstruct the investigation into them.
Trump was also indicted by a grand jury for conspiracy to defraud the US for his role in attempting to overturn the 2020 election result and his conduct during the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
Smith resigned on January 10 after Trump boasted he would fire Smith ‘within two seconds’ of taking office if he won the election.
Before he stepped down, Smith retained outside counsel from Peter Koski at Covington & Burling – the biggest law firm in Washington DC.
Smith’s final public disclosure report included the pro bono legal services under the gifts and travel reimbursements section.
Public officials are allowed to accept free legal services or set up legal defense funds under an Office of Government Ethics regulation from 2023.
Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith accepted $140,000 worth of free legal services in the last weeks before he resigned
Smith’s final public disclosure report included the pro bono legal services under the gifts and travel reimbursements section
The legal services must be related to ‘the employee’s past or current official position’, cleared by an ethics official at their agency, and disclosed on the report.
Smith submitted the report on his last day, and it was reviewed by ethics official Joseph Tirrell on February 5.
Why Smith needed outside counsel is unclear, but he retained Koski, himself a former DoJ official, amid Trump’s escalating rhetoric against political enemies.
Trump had more than a dozen of lawyers who worked under Smith fired within days of his inauguration, followed by others who prosecuted January 6 rioters.
He also made various threats towards Smith and his team, including ‘they ought to throw Deranged Jack Smith and his Thug Prosecutors in jail’ in 2023.
Trump also called Smith a ‘deranged lunatic’ who was ‘lamebrained’, and lobbed other insults at him during the investigations.
Despite Smith’s pro bono legal services being approved by DoJ ethics officials, some Republicans want him investigated for it.
‘Save your receipts, Smith and Covington. We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw,’ Trump’s new attorney general Ed Martin wrote on Twitter.
Smith ran two criminal investigations into Donald Trump , both of which were dropped after his election victory as a sitting president can’t be prosecuted
One of the volumes in Smith’s report relates to Trump’s possession of national security documents to Mar-a-Lago
Joe Biden did not give Smith a preemptive pardon before he left office, unlike the House Jan 6 Committee members, health boss Anthony Fauci, and former Joint Chiefs Chairman, and frequent Trump critic, Mark Milley.
No investigation of Smith has ever been proposed, but Trump’s attorney-general Pam Bondi set up a thinly veiled ‘working group’ examining the Justice Department being ‘weaponized’.
‘Weaponization by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff who spent more than $50 million targeting President Trump, and the prosecutors and law enforcement personnel who participated in the unprecedented raid on President Trump’s home,’ was an identified target of the group.
Smith has ties to several lawyers at Covington & Burling, including Lanny Breuer, who is representing him alongside Koski.
Breuer ran the Justice Department’s criminal division in 2009 to 2013 and recruited Smith in 2010. He has since strongly defended him during the Trump probe.
Alan Vinegrad was the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, making him Smith’s boss when he worked there.
Former US attorney-general under Barack Obama, Eric Holder, is another partner at the powerful law firm.
