# Jack Smith (lawyer)

John Luman Smith (born June 5, 1969) is an American attorney who has served in the United States Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney, acting U.S. attorney, and head of the department's Public Integrity Section. He was also the chief prosecutor at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, an international tribunal at The Hague tasked with investigating and prosecuting war crimes in the Kosovo War. He served as a Special Counsel for the Department of Justice from November 18, 2022 until his resignation on January 10, 2025.
In November 2022, attorney general Merrick Garland appointed Smith an independent special counsel, responsible for overseeing two preexisting Justice Department criminal investigations into former president Donald Trump, three days after Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign: one regarding Trump's role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack, and the other into alleged mishandling of government records, including classified documents. The documents case resulted in a 37-count indictment of Trump in June 2023 to which three counts were later added in July. In August, the January 6 case resulted in an indictment on four charges.
The classified documents case was dismissed by judge Aileen Cannon in July 2024, on the grounds that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel. Smith's office initially appealed the ruling, but ultimately abandoned the appeal after Trump won the 2024 US presidential election. The election subversion case was dismissed by judge Tanya Chutkan in November 2024, on the grounds that the Office of Legal Counsel held that Trump as President-elect could not be charged consistent with the Constitution.

## Early life and education

Smith was born on June 5, 1969. He grew up in Clay, New York, a suburb of Syracuse. His father was a draftsman of air-conditioning systems; his mother was a homemaker for most of Smith's childhood. He graduated from Liverpool High School in 1987, where he played football and baseball. He then studied political science at the State University of New York at Oneonta, graduating in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude. Smith then attended Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1994 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.

## Career

After graduating from law school, Smith joined the Manhattan District Attorney's office, serving as assistant district attorney. He was a member of the sex crimes and domestic violence units of the DA's office. He joined the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York in 1999. As an assistant U.S. attorney at the Brooklyn-based office, he prosecuted the police officers who brutalized and sexually assaulted Abner Louima, and led the case towards the death penalty—which was later overturned—against Ronell Wilson, who murdered two members of the New York Police Department. On one occasion he reportedly slept in an apartment building hallway for an entire weekend so he could intercept a witness in a domestic violence case and convince her to testify.
From 2008 to 2010, Smith worked as investigation coordinator for the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. In that position, he oversaw cases against government officials and militia members accused of war crimes and genocide. In 2010, Smith returned to the U.S. to become chief of the U.S. Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section (PIN). Among his first responsibilities was evaluating current investigations, and he recommended closing investigations into several members of Congress. He spent five years as chief of PIN, where he prosecuted a variety of corruption cases, including those against Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, U.S. representative Rick Renzi, Jeffrey Sterling, a Central Intelligence Agency officer who shared national secrets, New York State Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, and North Carolina Senator John Edwards. McDonnell, Renzi, Sterling, and Silver were found guilty, though the Supreme Court later unanimously overturned McDonnell's conviction. Edwards' case ended in a mistrial.
In 2015, Smith became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Middle District of Tennessee, at Nashville. He became the acting U.S. attorney in March 2017 upon the resignation of David Rivera, and resigned effective September 2017 after the nomination of Donald Q. Cochran. Smith became the vice president and head of litigation for Hospital Corporation of America in 2017.
On May 7, 2018, Smith was named to a four-year term as chief prosecutor for the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague, investigating war crimes in the Kosovo War. During his time as the chief prosecutor, he brought charges against several individuals, including Salih Mustafa and the sitting President of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi. He took up the post on September 11, 2018, and was appointed to a second term on May 8, 2022, before stepping down on November 18, 2022.

## United States special counsel

On November 18, 2022, United States Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations into Donald Trump's actions regarding the January 6 U.S. Capitol attack, and Trump's handling and storage of government records, including classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. He worked initially from the Netherlands while recovering from a fractured leg, injured when he was struck by a scooter while cycling. By early January 2023, Smith had returned to the U.S.
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on seven federal criminal charges related to his handling of the classified documents. This marked the first time in American history that a serving or former president has been indicted on a federal criminal charge. After repeated delays and postponement of the trial, Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case on July 15, 2024 on the grounds that Smith's appointment as special counsel violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. On July 17, with permission from the Justice Department, Smith filed a notice of appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On August 1, 2023, a grand jury indicted Trump on four federal charges related to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his conduct during the January 6 Capitol attack. A year later, the Supreme Court decision on immunity directed Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine what parts of the indictment may proceed, based on whether each act was official or private conduct; whether the official acts are part of core constitutional duties; and whether prosecuting the non-core official acts would have any "dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive." Before Chutkan could hold a hearing, Smith issued a superseding indictment rewording the charges to exclude Trump's attempts to pressure his Justice Department, but did not drop any of the charges.
Two weeks before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, he said in a radio interview that, were he to take office, "I would fire him [Jack Smith] within two seconds." On November 13, it was reported that Smith planned to step down before Trump took office. On November 22, it was reported that Trump was planning to use the Justice Department to investigate his 2020 election loss as well as to fire Jack Smith's entire team. In January 2025, Jack Smith provided the report to the attorney general (as he is required to do by law) and resigned his role of special counsel before Donald Trump took office. A 137-page part of the report about the election subversion case was publicly released. The other part of the report about the documents case was not immediately released.
On February 25, 2025, Trump revoked the security clearances of Smith's lawyer, Peter Koski, a partner with the Covington & Burling firm, as well as the security clearances of everyone else in the firm who worked with Smith while he was special counsel.

## Awards

* U.S. Department of Justice Director's Award
* U.S. Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service
* Federal Bar Association's Younger Federal Attorney Award
* Eastern District Association's Charles Rose Award
* Henry L. Stimson Medal of the New York County Bar Association
* Harvard Law School Wasserstein Fellowship

## Personal life

Smith is a competitive triathlete, having taken up swimming when he was in his mid-thirties. He has completed more than 100 triathlons and at least nine Ironman competitions around the world. In July 2011, he married Katy Chevigny, a documentary filmmaker known for Becoming, a 2020 documentary about Michelle Obama. They have a daughter. The couple lived in the Netherlands starting in 2018, before moving to Washington, D.C. in December 2022, shortly after Smith was appointed as special counsel.