An ongoing special counsel investigation was opened by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on November 18, 2022, to continue two investigations initiated by the Justice Department (DOJ) regarding former U.S. President Donald Trump. Garland appointed Jack Smith, a longtime federal prosecutor, to lead the independent investigations. Smith was tasked with investigating Trump's role in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and Trump's mishandling of government records, including classified documents.
Smith moved quickly to advance his investigations, assembling a team of at least twenty DOJ prosecutors, and called witnesses for grand jury testimony, issued subpoenas to election officials in multiple states and asked a federal judge to hold Trump in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena.
On June 8, 2023, a grand jury in the Southern Florida U.S. District Court indicted Trump on 37 felony counts, including charges of willful retention of national security material, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, relating to his removal and retention of presidential materials from the White House after his presidency ended. Thirty-one of the counts fell under the Espionage Act. Trump pleaded not guilty. The judge set trial for May 20, 2024.
On August 1, 2023, a grand jury for the District of Columbia U.S. District Court issued a four-count indictment of Trump for conspiracy to defraud the United States under Title 18 of the United States Code, obstructing an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, and conspiracy against rights under the Enforcement Act of 1870 for his conduct following the 2020 presidential election through the January 6 Capitol attack. Trump pleaded not guilty. The judge set trial for March 4, 2024.
Origin
On U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland's confirmation as attorney general, the DOJ opened multiple investigations into events during the closing weeks of the Trump presidency.
One investigation involved the people and events surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol. In early 2022, the public became aware that the Justice Department was investigating the Trump fake electors plot. In September 2022, subpoenas were issued, focusing on fundraising in the lead-up to the attack on the Capitol.
The other investigation related to Trump's handling of government documents. In May 2021, NARA began negotiating the return of presidential records, and in January 2022, DOJ became involved. The public was unaware of this investigation until the August 2022 execution of a search warrant at Trump's Mar-a-Lago home by the FBI.
In November 2022, Smith was appointed to assume the investigations. A report published in July 2023 said he had spent $5.4 million to date on the investigations. The grand jury is due to expire on September 15, 2023, but can be extended.
Investigation of mishandling of documents
Developments
2022
December
Smith asked Beryl Howell, chief judge of the DC District Court, to hold Trump in contempt for failure to fully comply with an August 2022 DOJ subpoena, as prosecutors suspected Trump may have withheld some documents subject to the subpoena; Howell declined to hold Trump in contempt, asking both parties to continue working toward a resolution.
On December 12, 2022, Jennifer Rodgers, a legal analyst for CNN, noted that DOJ (which had not yet charged Trump with a crime) would find it difficult to finish any hypothetical case before the 2024 presidential election. She said DOJ might prioritize charging Trump in the documents case given that a conviction might be reached more quickly than in the January 6 case.
Contractors hired by Trump in late 2022 found additional documents marked classified, and Trump attorneys gave them to the special counsel in December 2022.