Former President Donald Trump blasted Jack Smith — the special counsel for the investigation into documents Trump brought to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency — in a series of fiery Truth Social posts last week.
On Thursday, Trump labeled Smith, who Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed as special counsel for the case in November, a “Trump Hating THUG” before referencing charges that the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in the Netherlands brought against former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi in 2020 while Smith served as the chamber’s specialist prosecutor.
Trump wrote:
The Special “Prosecutor” assigned to the “get Trump case,” Jack Smith(?), is a Trump Hating THUG whose wife is a serial and open Trump Hater, whose friends & other family members are even worse, and as a prosecutor in Europe, according to Ric Grenell, put a high government official in prison because he was a Trump positive person.
The ten-count indictment brought against Thaçi in 2020 alleges he and others committed “a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture,” amid the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo as Yugoslavia disintegrated in the 1990s.
The tribunal court was established to investigate war crimes “commenced or committed in Kosovo between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000 by or against citizens of Kosovo or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” related to allegations reported in a Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Report published in January 2011.
Hashim Thaçi, who resigned as Kosovo’s president to face charges including murder, torture and persecution, makes his first courtroom appearance before a judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers court in The Hague, Netherlands, Monday, November 9, 2020. (AP Photo/Jerry Lampen via AP Photo)
However, Richard Grenell, who served as the special envoy to negotiations between the two countries in the Trump administration, has repeatedly contended that the charges against Thaçi were pursued out of political motivation and that he was working on the final stages of a deal between Kosovo and Serbia that would end the specialist chambers.
Kosovo and Serbia had not held official negotiations in 19 months, as the Associated Press reported, when Thaçi and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić were set to meet at the White House with Grenell and the Trump administration for talks on June 27, 2020. Serbia has not recognized Kosovo’s independence since the country declared it under then-Prime Minister Thaçi in 2008, but Grenell stated at CPAC in August that both Thaçi and Vučić were forward-looking leaders who sought resolution.
WATCH:
[embedded content]
On June 24, 2020, days before the presidents were set to meet with Grenell in Washington, DC, the Smith-led KSC issued a press release announcing the indictment against Thaçi, alleging he and others were “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders.” Although the press release of the indictment was published on June 24, it asserted the charges were brought months earlier on April 24, 2020.
Per the release, Smith “deemed it necessary to issue this public notice of charges because of repeated efforts by Hashim THAÇI and Kadri VESELI to obstruct and undermine the work of the KSC.”
But Grenell asserted in a series of tweets last month that “Smith moved to indict” Thaçi “after I told Bruce Schwartz at DOJ [the Department of Justice] that the parties agreed to end the special court and Jack Smith would lose his job.” Grenell said Smith was “tipped off” by the DOJ.
Jack Smith moved to indict @HashimThaciRKS after I told Bruce Schwartz at DOJ that the parties agreed to end the special court and Jack Smith would lose his job.
Thaci was coming to the Trump White House to finish the final deal.
Jack Smith jumped to indict.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) December 20, 2022
“Thaçi was coming to the Trump White House to finish the final deal,” Grenell added. “Jack Smith jumped to indict.”
Jose can’t be this dumb – he must have an agenda.
Ask yourself – why did Jack Smith indict Thaci weeks before Trump was about to end his cushy job in Europe? And after years of nothing – only to have no details in the charges?
TDS! Not justice.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) December 20, 2022
At CPAC, Grenell noted that Thaçi “sits in a Hague prison today, two years later” and asserted that Thaçi’s “crime is that he was negotiating with Donald Trump.”
In his following Truth Social posts, Trump stated that the “Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the ‘Legal’ System” against him at all levels of government since the day he declared his candidacy for office in 2015:
Page 2. For seven years, from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, the Democrat Party has WEAPONIZED the “Legal” System, using City, State, and Federal Law Enforcement against me and the Republican Party as though they were a Private Protection Agency. The greatest Witch Hunt in American History must end now. I beat the Fake Impeachments, the disgraceful Mueller Persecution, and much else that the Fake News doesn’t want to write or talk about, but this charade MUST STOP NOW!!!
He then called for Smith, who worked as a prosecutor in the DOJ prior to his role in the KSC, to be removed from his post as special counsel.
“His conflicts, unfairness, and mental state of derangement make him totally unfit for the job of ‘getting Trump.’ Go after Biden and the Biden Crime Family instead,” Trump added.
President Joe Biden finds himself amid his own classified documents controversy stemming from documents he took from his time as vice president during the Obama administration.
