He filed charges against Hashim Thaci as prosecutor at The Hague, for whom Jack Smith is currently being investigated in the US

The US Special Adviser's Office has opened an official investigation into former prosecutor Jack Smith, following claims of abuse of office and political influence during 2024 presidential elections, reports American media.

The investigation is based on Actin Hatch, a law banning federal officials from becoming involved in political activities.

The news was confirmed by an email discovered by The New York Post, sent by senior adviser Charles Baldis while the Associated Press, NBC News and other US media confirmed that the investigation is under way by the Office of Special Adviser, an independent federal agency, on charges of illegal political activity.

Smith, appointed by Prosecutor General Merrick Garland in November 2022, conducted two cases against Donald Trump: for handling classified documents and for the role of the January 6, 2021 events. Both cases have been dropped by courts after Trump's return to the presidency.

Republican Senator Tom Cotton was among the main voices that demanded the launch of the investigation. He has named Smith's move as “pure abuse with power” and has charged him with using the law as a weapon against the republican candidate.

In a post on the X platform, Cotton said Smith is a partisan “democrat” that has accelerated investigations at key moments of the campaign, such as the causes in Iowa, to influence the election outcome.

Smith has not commented on the investigation, but earlier stated that his actions were independent and in accordance with the law. He resigned in January 2025, following the return of the task.

Jack Smith is The Hague Special Prosecutor who filed charges against KLA leaders

US prosecutor Jack Smith, who had been senior prosecutor at the US Department of Justice, took office as chief prosecutor at the Special Prosecutor's Office in The Hague in September 2018 and spent the next two years continuing the investigation of Thaci and others.

On June 24, 2020, while the investigation was still under way, Thaci was on his way to Washington at the invitation of President Trump to meet with him and Serbian President Vucic at the White House on 27 June in an effort to draw both sides, a historic opportunity.

At the same time, however, Smith's office issued a press release saying that an indictment was filed against Thaci (and three other KLA veterans), prompting Thaci to return home immediately and the meeting in the White House to be cancelled, certainly a lost opportunity for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

The statement on the media was unauthorised because the judge of the preliminary procedure had not yet confirmed the indictment, violating statuteial privacy. Smith might assume that Thaci had learned of the charge and could try to escape.

But the indictment was later confirmed on October 26, 2020, accusing Thaci and three others of multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, and was made public on November 5th, at which time Thaci resigned from the presidency. Later, the four defendants handed over warrants on November 4th and 5th, and they surrendered to The Hague tribunal and were placed in custody. Thaci and the others have pleaded innocent to all charges.

Since then, all four have remained in custody during the entire preliminary procedure and during the trial itself, which began on April 3, 2023 a period of over 1,250 days since the text's writing, except for several brief visits to Kosovo for reasons of compassion.

Adjusting the court procedure requires that detention be revised every two months. The latest review for Thaci, the 12th, was on December 15th 2023, and his detention was continued by the court for another two months. /Euronews Albania/ Periscope.