FLASH
Shkruar nga PamfletiJack Smith is the prosecutor of the Hague Special Chamber that filed the indictments against the KLA leaders.
The US Office of Special Counsel has opened a formal investigation into former prosecutor Jack Smith, following allegations of abuse of office and political influence during the 2024 presidential election, US media report.
The investigation is based on the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits federal officials from engaging in political activity.
The news was confirmed by an email leaked by The New York Post, sent by senior adviser Charles Baldis, while the Associated Press, NBC News and other American media confirmed that the investigation is being conducted by the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, into allegations of illegal political activity.
Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022, led two cases against Donald Trump: for handling classified documents and for his role in the events of January 6, 2021. Both cases were dismissed by the courts after Trump returned to the presidency.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton has been among the leading voices calling for the investigation. He has called Smith's actions a "pure abuse of power" and accused him of using the law as a weapon against the Republican candidate.
In a post on Platform X, Cotton said Smith is a "partisan Democrat" who has accelerated investigations at key moments in the campaign, such as the Iowa caucuses, to influence the outcome of the election.
Smith has not commented on the investigation, but has previously said his actions were independent and in accordance with the law. He resigned in January 2025, after Trump returned to office.
Jack Smith is the prosecutor of the Hague Special Chamber that filed the indictments against the KLA leaders.
US Attorney Jack Smith, who had been a senior prosecutor in the US Department of Justice, took over as chief prosecutor at the Specialist Prosecutor's Office in The Hague in September 2018 and spent the next two years continuing the investigation of Thaçi and others.
On June 24, 2020, while the investigation was still ongoing, Thaçi was on his way to Washington at the invitation of President Trump to meet with him and Serbian President Vučić at the White House on June 27 in an effort to bring the two sides closer, a historic opportunity.
However, at the same time, Smith’s office issued a press release stating that an indictment had been filed against Thaçi (and three other KLA veterans), prompting Thaçi to immediately return home and the White House meeting to be canceled, surely a missed opportunity to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
The media statement was unauthorized because the pretrial judge had not yet confirmed the indictment, violating statutory confidentiality. It can be assumed that Smith suspected that Thaçi had learned of the indictment and might attempt to flee.
But the indictment was later confirmed on 26 October 2020, charging Thaçi and three others with multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, and was made public on 5 November, at which time Thaçi resigned from the presidency. Arrest warrants were subsequently issued for the four defendants on 4 and 5 November, and they were surrendered to the Hague tribunal and placed in pre-trial detention. Thaçi and the others have pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Since then, all four have remained in detention throughout the entire pre-trial proceedings and the trial itself, which began on April 3, 2023 – a period of over 1,150 days as of this writing, with the exception of a few brief visits to Kosovo for compassionate reasons.
The court's rules of procedure require that detention be reviewed every two months. Thaçi's last hearing, the 12th, was on December 15, 2023, and his detention was extended by the trial panel for another two months.
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