A US federal agency has formally opened an investigation into former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the probe in two criminal cases against President Donald Trump before he resigned from his post earlier this year.
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The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) confirmed that it was probing whether Smith violated the Hatch Act during his investigation of President Trump. The Hatch Act restricts federal employees from using their position for political activities. The decision by the Office of Special Counsel to open an investigation follows a request by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton.
The OSC, which is an independent agency that investigates the conduct of the federal employees, cannot bring criminal charges as it doesn’t have that authority, Reuters reported. The OSC probe against Smith is the latest salvo in the series of actions taken by the Trump administration and his allies against their perceived political opponents.
Smith was appointed as Special Counsel by the Department of Justice in 2022 under former President Joe Biden to investigate Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents and his alleged attempt to interfere in the 2020 US presidential election. Smith resigned from his post after Trump defeated former Vice President and Democrats’ candidate Kamala Harris.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who first raised the request for investigation, accused Smith of aggressively pursuing his cases against Trump with the aim of hurting his presidential campaign and called the former special counsel “a political actor masquerading as a public official”.
In a post on X, Cotton said “That’s why I’ve asked this unprecedented interference in the 2024 election be immediately investigated by OSC.” After President Trump won the election, Smith had dropped both the cases and cited a longstanding Justice Department’s policy to avoid prosecution of a sitting president.
Trump had denied the charges and said that prosecution cases were politically motivated to damage his presidential campaign.