Jack Smith

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Before The Hague, Smith served as the vice president of litigation for the Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest nongovernmental health care provider.

Smith began his prosecutorial career in 1994 as an assistant district attorney with the New York County District Attorney’s Office. In 1999, he became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where he worked for nine years prosecuting issues such as gang murders of police officers as well as civil rights violations, according to a bio from the Justice Department.

From 2008 to 2010, Smith worked at the International Criminal Court where he oversaw war crimes investigations.

In 2010, Smith returned to the Justice Department where he worked as chief of the Public Integrity Section, overseeing public corruption and elections-related investigations. In 2015, he served as the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee before becoming the acting United States attorney.

Special counsel urges Americans to read indictment of Trump to understand the "gravity of the crimes"
Special counsel Jack Smith urged Americans to read the indictment against former President Donald Trump that was unsealed Friday. it is the first time a former president has faced federal criminal charges.

He said that there are laws that protect national defense information that are "critical to the safety and security of the United States and they must be enforced."

"We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone," Smith said, adding his office applied those laws and collected facts during the course of its investigation.

"That's what determines the outcome of an investigation. Nothing more and nothing less," he said.

Laws "apply to everyone," special counsel says
Special counsel Jack Smith said that US laws "apply to everyone" in remarks following the unsealing of the indictment of former President Donald Trump and one of his aides.

Smith also lauded the prosecutors in his office and said that the defendants in the case are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

"They have investigated this case to the highest ethical standards and they will continue to do so as this case proceeds. It's very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law," he said.

Special counsel Jack Smith says his office will "seek a speedy trial"
After the federal indictment against former President Donald Trump was unsealed Friday, special counsel Jack Smith said his office would seek a "speedy trial."

"It's very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. To that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter, consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused," he said Friday.

Geez, Goldie!  Remind me to never miff you off!

As former President Donald Trump makes his first court appearance in Florida to face federal charges related to his handling of classified documents, special counsel Jack Smith's separate investigation into Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election appears to be quietly pressing on inside a grand jury room in Washington, D.C.

Nevada GOP Chairman Michael McDonald and Nevada GOP committee member Jim DeGraffenreid were spotted by a network pool reporter Tuesday afternoon inside the Prettyman Federal Courthouse, where the Jan. 6 grand jury meets.

Both men were part of the failed 2020 effort to put forward slates of fake electors who would attempt to cast electoral college votes for Trump on Jan. 6, despite Trump's loss in the state to Joe Biden.

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was interviewed by special counsel Jack Smith's team last week as part of its investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, sources told CNN and The New York Times.

The "voluntary interview, which took place under what is known as a proffer agreement," comes as the special counsel probe has ramped up in recent weeks, according to the Times.

Sources told the outlet that the interview "touched on some of the most important aspects" of the probe into the ways that former President Donald Trump tried to overturn his loss.

A proffer agreement is an understanding between prosecutors and subjects of a criminal investigation that can precede a formal cooperation agreement, the report noted. Subjects agree to provide information to the government in exchange for avoiding potential charges or to avoid testifying under a subpoena before a grand jury. In exchange, prosecutors agree not to use their statements against them in criminal proceedings unless they lied.

Smith's team pressed Giuliani about the fake elector scheme and the role played by Trump legal adviser John Eastman in the plot. Giuliani also discussed former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who pushed bizarre conspiracy theories that voting machines were hacked to steal the election before she was sanctioned by a federal judge.

Prosecutors also asked Giuliani about the scene at the Willard Hotel, where he, Eastman, and Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Boris Ephsteyn, among others, gathered to discuss strategies ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Giuliani's interview came as prosecutors "appear to be nearing charging decisions" in the fake elector scheme, a source told CNN, as prosecutors have pressed attorneys to "quickly bring in other witnesses for interviews."

National security attorney Bradley Moss tweeted that the "big news is this wasn't just an interview: it was a proffer session."

"Rudy is trying to avoid indictment," he wrote, though he cautioned that "this isn't necessarily an indication he is turning on Trump."

"Those conversations are still privileged anyway," he explained. "But he could be ratting out Eastman and Powell, for example, in order to make a deal."

Former federal prosecutor Noah Bookbinder, the head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, wrote that Giuliani's interview is "very significant" because he had a "front row seat to Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and was himself a leading force behind that effort."

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen pointed out that there is only "one reason" Smith's team would take a proffer from Giuliani.

"They're considering ways to move up the Jan. 6 food chain," he wrote. "That's ominous for Trump."

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Ackerman told MSNBC that Giuliani was "smack-dab in the middle of everything."

"If he comes totally clean here, Donald Trump is in big trouble, John Eastman is in big trouble, right down the line, possibly General Flynn, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon," he said.

"I don't think they have anybody who was in place in that Willard Hotel war room, and what was going on there, and what was the connection between people in that war room and the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers," he added. "That's what we want to find out, and that's what Jack Smith is going in for. Absolutely this is it. This is the big kill."

But former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann cautioned that while it's possible Giuliani could reach a deal with prosecutors, "it also could be far less than that."

"Remember Rudy went into the GA grand jury too and testified and apparently was adjudged by one juror as credible," he tweeted.

A top official in Donald Trump's 2020 campaign team who was a key part of the fake elector scheme to overturn the results in favor of the former president is cooperating with federal prosecutors, according to reports

Mike Roman was director of Election Day operations for Trump's campaign. He has spoken to Special Counsel Jack Smith's office as part of the expansive criminal investigation into attempts to overturn the last election and into the events that led up to the January 6, 2021 attack, reported CNN.

Roman reportedly spoke to prosecutors under what is known as a proffer agreement. This means he can share information with investigators on an understanding that the statements will not be used against him in future criminal proceedings. Roman also may not have to appear before the grand jury as part of the agreement. It is unclear what precisely Roman was asked about during his meeting with prosecutors, or what information he may have provided.

The New York Times[/b] previously reported that Roman was preparing to answer questions voluntarily about the scheme to create a fake group of electors.

[i]The New York Times also described Roman as doing "much of the legwork" in finding ways to challenge Trump's losses in the key battleground states at the last election. Roman is considered a major part of the plot to send fake electoral officials to declare falsely that Trump had won in states such as Georgia, Arizona and Michigan in 2020.

In July 2022, Politico named Roman as a Trump operative who tried to get a list of false electors from Michigan and Wisconsin to Pennsylvania GOP congressman Mike Kelly on Capitol Hill in a hope they would eventually make their way to Vice President Mike Pence.

Special counsel Jack Smith subpoenaed the Arizona secretary of state’s office in recent months as part of his investigation into the Jan. 6 riot and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a spokesperson for the state agency confirmed Wednesday.

Paul Smith-Leonard, a spokesperson from Secretary of State Adrian Fontes' office, said Smith sought information linked to a pair of lawsuits, one filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign and another by former Arizona Republican Party chair Kelli Ward that claimed errors and fraud had tainted the 2020 presidential election results.

Specifically, Smith sought documents related to communications with opposing attorneys, discovery and proposed exhibits, Smith-Leonard said of the subpoena first reported by the Arizona Republic and issued as recently as May.

He added that Coppersmith Brockelman PLC, the law firm representing the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on the subpoenas, complied with Smith's request.

Andy Gaona, an attorney at the law firm, declined to comment when reached by NBC News. A spokesperson for the special counsel's office also declined to comment.

The Trump campaign's lawsuit in question was dismissed in November 2020, while Ward unsuccessfully sought U.S. Supreme Court review of her election challenge after the Arizona Supreme Court in December 2020 upheld a lower court’s decision regarding the accuracy of results in the state.

Ward came under scrutiny by the Justice Department for her efforts to create a competing slate of electors in her state declaring that Trump won despite certified results showing President Joe Biden narrowly defeated Trump by 10,457 votes. Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, were also among 14 of 84 so-called fake electors subpoenaed last year by the House Jan. 6 committee.