room and an office including 100 classified documents in all roughly 300 documents with classification markings including some at the top secret level have been recovered from trump since he left office in january 2021 how did a special counsel get involved last year us attorney general merrick garland picked jack smith a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption probes to lead investigations into the presence of classified documents at trumps florida estate as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the jan 6 2021 insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election smiths appointment was a recognition by garland of the politics involved in an investigation into a former president and current white house candidate garland himself was selected by democratic president joe biden whom trump is seeking to challenge for the white house in 2024 special counsels are appointed in cases in which the justice department perceives itself as having a conflict or where its deemed to be in the public interest to have someone outside the government come in and take responsibility for a matter according to the code of federal regulations a special counsel must have a reputation for integrity and impartial decision making as well as an informed understanding of the criminal law and department of justice policies didnt biden and former vicepresident mike pence have classified documents too yes but the circumstances of their cases are vastly different from those involving trump after classified documents were found at bidens think tank and pences indiana home their lawyers notified authorities and quickly arranged for them to be handed over they also authorized other searches by federal authorities to search for additional documents there is no indication either was aware of the existence of the records before they were found and no evidence has so far emerged that biden or pence sought to conceal the discoveries thats important because the justice department historically looks for willfulness in deciding whether to bring criminal charges a special counsel was appointed earlier this year to probe how classified materials ended up at bidens delaware home and former office but even if the justice department were to find bidens case prosecutable on the evidence its office of legal counsel has concluded that a president is immune from prosecution during his time in office as for pence the justice department informed his legal team earlier this month that it would not be pursuing criminal charges against him over his handling of the documents does a federal indictment prevent trump from running for presidentno neither the indictment itself nor a conviction would prevent trump from running for or winning the presidency in 2024 and as the new york case showed criminal charges have historically been a boon to his fundraising the campaign announced that it had raised over 4 million in the 24 hours after that indictment became public far smashing its previous record after the fbi search of trumps maralago club how are