Former US President Donald John Trump. AFP
WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department on Friday named a former war crimes investigator as a special counsel to oversee criminal probes into Donald Trump, three days after the former president announced a new White House run in 2024.
Trump -- who claims to be the target of a "witch hunt" -- slammed the dramatic move as "unfair" and "the worst politicization of justice in our country."
At a press conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Jack Smith, until recently a chief prosecutor in The Hague charged with probing Kosovo war crimes, to take over the two ongoing federal probes into Trump.
One is focused on the former president's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his supporters.
The other is an investigation into a cache of classified government documents seized in an FBI raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida in August.
Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News Digital that he was being targeted by the Biden administration to prevent him winning back the presidency.
"This is a disgrace and only happening because I am leading in every poll in both parties," he said. "It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political."
"This will not be a fair investigation," Trump told guests later at his Mar-a-Lago home.
"The horrendous abuse of power is the latest in a long series of witch hunts," he said, to applause.
In addition to the federal investigations, Trump faces other legal woes.
New York state's attorney general Letitia James has filed a civil suit against Trump and three of his children, accusing them of business fraud.
And Trump is being investigated for pressuring officials in the southern swing state of Georgia to overturn Biden's 2020 victory -- including a now-infamous taped phone call in which he asked the secretary of state to "find" enough votes to reverse the result.
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