The wife of Jack Smith, the newly-appointed special counsel in the investigation into the documents former President Donald Trump brought to Mar-a-Lago at the culmination of his term, made political donations to President Joe Biden and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) throughout the years and helped produce the 2020 Michelle Obama documentary Becoming.
Federal Election Commission records show that Smith’s wife, Katy Chevigny, contributed $1,000 each to Biden’s 2020 campaign, Biden for President, and the Biden Victory Fund super PAC, on September 9, 2020. Moreover, she donated $150 to the Friends of Rashida Tlaib committee in July 2008 when Tlaib was running for the Michigan House of Representatives in the state’s Twelfth District.
Chevigny is a documentary film director and producer who co-founded the company Big Mouth Productions. She is listed on the company’s website as a producer of the 2020 Michelle Obama documentary titled Becoming, which received four Emmy nominations.
On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Chevigny’s husband, Smith, as special counsel in both the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation “and aspects of a separate probe” pertaining to January 6, as the Associated Press’s Erik Tucker and Michael Balsamo reported.
Prosecutor Jack Smith waits for the start of the court session of Kadri Veseli’s initial appearance at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers court in The Hague, Netherlands, Nov. 10, 2020. (Robin van Lonkhuijsen/Pool Photo via AP)
“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,” Garland said, per the Associated Press.
On Sunday, Trump told Fox News Digital he would not “partake” in the investigation.
Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco arrive to deliver remarks at the U.S. Justice Department on November 18, 2022 in Washington, DC. Garland announced he will appoint a special counsel to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into former President Donald Trump and his handling of classified documents and actions before the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. Garland’s pick to oversee the special counsel is Jack Smith, an international criminal court prosecutor. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“I have been going through this for six years — for six years I have been going through this, and I am not going to go through it anymore,” Trump said. “And I hope the Republicans have the courage to fight this.”
“I have been proven innocent for six years on everything — from fake impeachments to Mueller, who found no collusion, and now I have to do it more? It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political,” the 45th president added.
“I am not going to partake in it,” said Trump. “I’m not going to partake in this.”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Friday night, Former Vice President Mike Pence cautioned the Department of Justice and Smith to tread carefully in future steps of its investigation.
“I read the news about the appointment of a special counsel. No one is above the law, but I’m not sure it’s against the law to take bad advice from lawyers,” Pence said.
“I still continue to be deeply offended that the Justice Department, after years of politicization, years that found FBI agents had actually falsified documents that the FBI used Clinton-funded opposition research to support an ongoing investigation that came to be known as the Russia Hoax,” he continued. “I was deeply disappointed that the Justice Department approved and actually executed a search warrant at the personal residence of the former president of the United States. I think the action was divisive and I think there were a number of steps short of that that would have been effective in resolving the issues around any classified documents that were in the president’s personal residence.”
“I would hope that with the appointment of a Special Counsel that the Justice Department and Special Counsel give very careful consideration to next steps,” Pence concluded. “This is a time for the country to heal and also I think this is a time where I think the Justice Department should be working to restore credibility, to restore public confidence after years of politicization, and I hope that that informs any decisions that are made in the months ahead.”