The New York Times reports:

As he prepares for his last act as special counsel, Mr. Smith’s ultimate audience will not be a jury, but the public.

Department regulations call for him to file a report summarizing his investigation and decisions — a document that may stand as the final accounting from a prosecutor who filed extensive charges against a former president but never got his cases to trial.

It is not clear how quickly he can finish this work, leaving uncertain whether it could be made public before the Biden administration leaves office. But several officials said he has no intention of lingering any longer than he has to, and has told career prosecutors and F.B.I. agents on his team who are not directly involved in that process that they can start planning their departures over the next few weeks, people close to the situation said.

The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss personnel moves.

Mr. Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, is now a target of pro-Trump Republicans who portray him as the embodiment of a Democratic effort to use “lawfare,” the so-called weaponization of the Justice Department, to destroy Mr. Trump.

On Friday, Republican lawmakers told Justice Department officials who had worked on the Trump cases to preserve all of their communications for investigators. That is a sure sign that a new balance of power in Washington will make Mr. Smith among those being hunted by congressional investigators and others. [Continue reading…]