Has Jack Smith botched the Trump indictments?
The legal system has utterly failed to disqualify former President Trump from office. Whether he becomes the next president is now anybody’s guess.
Much of the fault may be laid at the feet of special counsel Jack Smith, who has pursued Trump with the zeal of Inspector Javert, but has thus far come up empty handed.
The open-and-shut case involving Trump’s mishandling of the classified Mar-a-Lago documents has been dismissed on unprecedented legal grounds involving Smith’s standing to prosecute him. The Washington case involving Trump’s conspiracy against democracy is back to the start, with Smith losing on immunity in the Supreme Court.
Straining to right a listing ship, Smith has filed a 165-page, procedurally irregular dump of his grand jury materials, containing evidence that Trump cannot refute. The filing obviously flouts the internal Justice Department rule that “Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”
So Smith has not played it by the book. Veteran prosecutor Elie Honig calls the brief “Smith’s October Cheap Shot.” It is certainly a late hit.
None of the facts in Smith’s submission are........
© The Hill
visit website