Donald Smaltz

Donald C. Smaltz is California lawyer who was appointed as Independent Counsel to investigate charges that Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy had received improper gifts from companies with business before his department.

Smaltz is the son of a Bethlehem, Pennsylvania steelworker and an Italian immigrant mother. He attended Penn State University and Dickinson School of Law where he receivid his law degree in 1961.

Smaltz served as a trial attorney for the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps. He then spent several years as Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles, where he specialized in white-collar crime.

In 1975, after moving into private practice, Smaltz grabbed headlines when he and another lawyer accused Watergate prosecutors of misconduct and persuaded a judge to dismiss two indictments against Richard Nixon's personal tax lawyer. Other high-profile clients have included the Teamsters and a bank with extensive ties to the late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his wife.

During the Bush Administration, Smaltz was asked by Judge George MacKinnon if he would be interested in leading an independent counsel probe into fraud and mismanagement at the Department of Housing and Urban Development and join the Justice Department. Smaltz ultimately turned down the job.

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