Trump Faces 'Serious Possibility' of Indictment by Special Counsel: Lawyer

Renato Mariotti, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor, said on Friday that former President Donald Trump could be facing a "serious possibility" of indictment after a special counsel was appointed to oversee a probe looking into Trump keeping highly classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday appointed Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor, as the special counsel who will look into the Department of Justice's (DOJ) probe, the Associated Press reported.

Smith will also look into some parts of a separate investigation related to last year's Capitol riot and Trump's possible role in trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

"If Merrick Garland didn't think there was a serious possibility that Trump would be indicted, he wouldn't have appointed a special counsel. He didn't appoint Jack Smith to wind down these investigations," Mariotti tweeted.

Garland's decision comes after Trump officially announced that he will run for president in 2024 after a poor performance by the GOP in some states during this year's midterms, which led Democrats to win the Senate majority. As a result, some Republicans blamed Trump for his influence on GOP candidates that they believe led to the party's losses.

The DOJ probe that Smith will oversee comes after FBI agents in August raided Trump's house in Florida, after an approval from Garland, to retrieve highly classified documents that he took from the White House after he left office. Some of those documents reportedly included sensitive information about nuclear weapons and "highly classified programs."

Trump has since repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and said that he declassified those documents before taking them. However, former DOJ official Mary McCord previously said that the ex-president was not authorized to do so after leaving the White House.

Meanwhile, Garland said on Friday that "the Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public's interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution."

The attorney general added that Trump's candidacy announcement played a part in his decision to appoint Smith as special counsel, saying that it would allow prosecutors to continue their investigation "indisputably guided" solely by the law and facts, according to the AP.

"Based on recent developments, including the former president's announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president's stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel," Garland said.

Smith is expected to report to Garland, who will then decide whether or not Trump should be indicted, the AP reported.

Smith, who is expected to start his work "immediately," led the DOJ's Public Integrity Section in Washington, D.C., and worked as the acting chief federal prosecutor in Nashville, Tennessee, when former President Barack Obama was in office. He was also the chief prosecutor for the special court in The Hague in the Netherlands, which investigates international war crimes.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's media office for comment.