It has become Donald Trump’s worst nightmare. Special prosecutor Jack Smith, 54, puts the former US president on the ropeswell placed in the polls to fight for the White House in next year’s presidential elections.
The former president has described the prosecutor as “upset” and has accused him of leading “a witch hunt policy” against him.
Who is this prosecutor that some define as implacable, upright and discreet? He has extensive experience both in the United States and abroad and has investigated war crimes in Kosovo at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In 2020, he joined the team of the US Attorney General, Merrick B. Garland. He was commissioned last November to investigate Trump’s role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and the theft of classified papers. He described her as “the right choice to investigate these matters impartially and urgently”.
Graduated from Harvard Law SchoolSmith began his career as a prosecutor in 1994, as an assistant district attorney in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
He is known for his persistence: he came to be one weekend sleeping in the hallway of an apartment building so he could convince a woman to be a witness in a domestic violence case, the Associated Press reported.
Cases against politicians accused of corruption and war crimes in The Hague
He has investigated numerous public corruption cases. Between 2010 and 2015, he oversaw anti-corruption proceedings against various US politicians, as the head of the Public Integrity section of the US Attorney General’s Office.
From 2008 to 2010 he worked as Investigations Coordinator in the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court, supervising war crimes. He then returned to the Department of Justice and later, in 2018, he returned to The Hague; on that occasion as chief prosecutor of the special court to prosecute war crimes in Kosovo.
It’s a lover of extreme sports, experienced cyclist and runnerhas participated in more than 100 triathlons around the world, Germany, Brazil, Canada or Denmark and has completed nine Iron Man.
“If I were the type of person who can be cornered I would look for another job“he said a few years ago.
