by Nick Gilbertson, Breitbart:
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is heading up the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump, has a history of charging political leaders, including former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi.
The former acting Director of National Security during the Trump administration, Richard Grenell, contends Smith’s charging of Thaçi was politically driven.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday unsealed its 49-page indictment against Trump detailing 38 counts, 31 of which alleged willful retention of national defense information, Breitbart News noted. While Smith has secured the grand jury indictment and is set to pursue the charges against the leading Republican presidential candidate, Trump insists, “I’M AN INNOCENT MAN.”
Smith is a Harvard Law graduate who embarked on a career in the American legal world with a job as a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 1994, Reuters noted. Remarkably, Trump finds himself under indictment from the current iteration of the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, led by left-wing chief prosecutor Alvin Bragg. The foundation of that case, which involves alleged falsification of business records in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, has been scrutinized by legal minds such as Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz and George Washington University Law Professor Jonathon Turley as well as staunch Trump critics such as Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL).
Smith made the jump from the state to the federal level in 1999, taking a job at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, per Reuters. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) noted in a press release he later served in the Justice Department as the chief of the Public Integrity Section between 2010-2015. During that time, the branch oversaw two prosecutions of prominent American political figures, former Democrat vice presidential nominee John Edwards and then-Virginia Gov. Bob McDonald. As the Associated Press reported, the DOJ’s conviction against McDonald was later overturned by a 9-0 vote by the Supreme Court, while Edwards was acquitted on one count, with the jury split on others. Prosecutors opted not to further pursue the case.
Smith also worked several stints as a prosecutor in Europe, first as the investigation coordinator in the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office from 2008-2010 and then as the special prosecutor in the KSC, prosecuting war crimes — where former President Thaçi comes into the frame.
