Jack Smith, the so-called "independent" special counsel who relentlessly tried to take down President Donald Trump on federal charges, reported receiving $140,000 in free legal services from a prominent Obama-connected law firm prior to his resignation last month.
Covington & Burling gave Smith the gift of pro bono legal assistance, according to a filing obtained by Politico. Smith submitted the 14-page disclosure as he departed the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in January.
How on earth is it legal for a law firm with clients and business before DOJ to provide $140,000 in free gifts to a top DOJ official?
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) February 15, 2025
DOJ rules and federal regulations explicitly prohibit officials like Jack Smith from accepting or soliciting gifts.
Smith, who did not receive a… https://t.co/3Us8VDP7wY pic.twitter.com/cddz3eX7ck
Per Politico, the DOJ appears to have approved Smith's request under an Office of Government Ethics (OGE) regulation issued in 2023 that lets federal employees set up legal defense funds or accept such services for free if the work is related to "the employee's past or current official position" or to the employee's prior position on a presidential campaign or transition team. However, the rule says such arrangements must be cleared by an agency ethics official and disclosed on an employee's financial filings.
Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, whom Trump just picked to serve permanently in that position, shared the Politico piece on X and suggested he's investigating Smith's disclosure.
Save your receipts, Smith and Covington. We’ll be in touch soon. #NoOneIsAboveTheLaw
— U.S. Attorney Ed Martin (@USAEdMartin) February 15, 2025
“Special counsel Jack Smith discloses ‘gift’ of $140,000 in free legal services” - POLITICO https://t.co/p6uZ1qC6oI
Covington is home to a number of ex-DOJ officials, notably Barack Obama's first U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, whose clients reportedly included many of the big banks he had declined to prosecute for their alleged role in the financial crisis. Holder told The National Law Journal that "aggressive" challenges to financial fraud could mean certain institutions "might not want to work with me," and when he had testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder suggested that some banks are "too big to jail."
In July, after the Democratic establishment booted Joe Biden off the 2024 ballot, Holder was hired to vet vice presidential nominees for Kamala Harris. In the immediate aftermath of Biden's ouster, Harris brought Holder in to conduct the vetting process of her potential running mates, Reuters reported.
Smith did not disclose why he sought the aid of outside attorneys, but he has ties to several high-profile lawyers at Covington, the law firm with the largest footprint in Washington, D.C.
Alan Vinegrad, another Covington partner, was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York during Smith's tenure there and assigned him to prosecute a prominent police abuse case.
Covington's vice chair, Lanny Breuer, previously served as chief of the DOJ's criminal division under Obama and asked Smith to take the pivotal post of heading the department's Public Integrity Section in 2010.
Breuer publicly defended Smith in interviews shortly after he was appointed special counsel. "Jack is not political at all," Brueur told The New York Times. "He is straight down the middle."
The Wall Street Journal first reported on Covington's representation of Smith, revealing that he has retained private counsel.
Trump had repeatedly ripped Smith and his team of "thug prosecutors," saying on social media they should be thrown in jail and criminally prosecuted. A week after Inauguration Day, the Trump-era DOJ fired more than a dozen lawyers who worked on Smith's prosecutions of the president. Trump's newly sworn-in Attorney General Pam Bondi announced a Day One directive establishing an anti-weaponization working group that would, among other investigative tasks, look into Smith's staff, who spent more than $50 million targeting Trump.
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