Jack Smith’s latest filing in the election interference case against Donald Trump contains explosive reminders and bombshell revelations about the former president’s conduct following his 2020 election loss that would have made even Niccolo Machiavelli blush. In his famous 16th-century book The Prince, Machiavelli lays out an ultra-pragmatic, no-holds-barred account of how to succeed in politics. Reading it, like Smith’s 165-page response to Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, is not for the faint at heart. Smith, like Machiavelli, pulled no punches.
Smith has exposed the truth of what Trump did and, in so doing, punches holes in Trump’s deceptions and delusions.
“A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good,” Machiavelli cautioned his readers.“Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to maintain his position to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity.”
Whatever else it is, Smith’s filing is not short on details.
Smith’s filing suggests that Trump surely knew “how to do wrong” in his quest to “maintain his power” despite a democratic decision to oust him from the Oval Office. As Smith puts it in simple straightforward prose, Trump “resorted to crimes to cling to power.”
Coming one day after the vice presidential debate, the filing is a devastating rebuttal of Republican Sen. JD Vance’s Orwellian effort to turn the horrible and violent events of January 6 into just another step in the peaceful transfer of power. “On January the 20th, what happened?” Vance said during the debate in an effort to push past the violent Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. “Joe Biden became the president. Donald Trump left the White........