Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory marked the beginning of the end of then-special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal cases. Almost immediately after Election Day, the prosecutor and his team grudgingly wrapped up their work — not because they wanted to or because they lacked compelling evidence, but because of Justice Department guidelines related to prosecuting a sitting president.
Left without options, Smith resigned and his criminal indictments against the president effectively evaporated.
In theory, Trump and his Republican allies could’ve celebrated the demise of Smith’s cases and moved on. In practice, it’s not quite working out that way.
The president continues to peddle baseless attacks against the former special counsel; the Trump administration continues to push out officials who worked with Smith; Republicans continue to target Smith with unhinged and easily discredited conspiracy theories; and GOP lawmakers continue to see the prosecutor as a worthwhile target.
Indeed, nine months ago, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan said he was prepared to call Smith to testify, and this week, the far-right Ohio Republican followed through, sending a letter to the former special counsel, demanding his closed-door testimony.
We’ll learn soon enough whether and when Smith will talk to lawmakers, but the timing of Jordan’s summoning is notable in its own right — because as the Judiciary Committee chair wants to hear from Smith, Smith appears to have quite a bit to say.
A few weeks ago, for example, the former special counsel, who’s maintained an exceedingly low public profile, delivered remarks at George Mason University and sounded the alarm about intensifying threats to the U.S. legal system. “My career has been about the rule of law, and I believe that today it is under attack like in no other period in our lifetimes,” Smith said.
Those were not his final words on the subject. The New York Times reported:
Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice secured indictments of Donald J. Trump, said it was ‘ludicrous’ to suggest he was motivated by partisan politics — and offered a scathing denunciation of the Trump Justice Department — in his first extended remarks since resigning in January. ‘The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous,’ Mr. Smith said during an Oct. 8 interview with the former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London that was posted online Tuesday. At the same event, the prosecutor added, “I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us.” I understand why Republicans have invested so much time and effort into villainizing Smith. He had the audacity to build strong criminal cases against Trump, rooted in voluminous evidence. And as the president works his way through his enemies list, he and his cohorts apparently still see value in trying to discredit the former special counsel. But they ought to be careful what they wish for. Smith is an experienced, credible and capable prosecutor, who’s familiar with the evidence from Trump’s criminal cases at a granular level. The more Republicans drag him back into the spotlight, the more Smith will be positioned to remind the public about alleged presidential felonies the party would probably prefer to forget. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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