Check out the guy in this pic. He certainly looks like he means business.
When the news broke Friday that Attorney General Merrick Garland had named a special counsel to determine whether Donald Trump should be criminally indicted, many of us who rightly pine for the Count of Mostly Crisco’s imprisonment were quite crestfallen. Our instinctive – and initial – reaction was that ceding the federal cases to a new hire was either a punt by Garland or, at minimum, a decision that would gum up the slowly grinding wheels of justice.
But not to worry.
Garland had long anticipated that Trump would try to pull a fast one, by announcing a new presidential candidacy with the delusional expectation that it would somehow shield him from indictment. First of all, a candidacy affords no such protection.
Second, Justice Department rules state that an attorney general shall appoint a special counsel when there’s a perceived “conflict of interest for the department, or other extraordinary circumstances.” It’s certainly an extraordinary circumstance when an attorney general working for a president who may run again is prepping a criminal case against a guy who’s running again.
Third, and arguably most importantly, Jack Smith is reputedly an aggressive kickass prosecutor with a fiercely apolitical streak – someone who, in his past life as head of the DOJ public corruption unit, targeted Democrats (Senator Bob Menendez and sleazy John Edwards) as well as Republicans. He’s going to work with the DOJ investigators who’ve already amassed mountains of damning evidence (especially in the stolen classified documents case), and thus he’s well positioned to hit the ground running. In a statement Friday, Smith promised that the Trump probes will not “slow” or “pause” or “flag.”
Andrew Weissman, a former federal prosecutor who took down the Enron corporation and jailed numerous top-ranked mobsters, tweets that “Jack Smith makes me look like a golden retriever puppy. So tenacious and fearless…Jack is a super fast, no-nonsense, and let’s-cut-to-the-chase kind of guy.”
Right on cue, nevertheless, America’s MAGA minions are doing the only thing they know how to do: smear with all deliberate speed. Trump, of course, has already led the way, labeling Smith as “radical left.” Republican staffers on the House Judiciary Committee tweet that Smith “has been a Swamp Creature forever.” And a Newsmax talking head crayoned: “I think someone should look into JACK SMITH. Who the hell is this guy? What’s up with that Purple thing? STAY IN SWEDEN.” (Ummm…the “Purple thing” is the judicial robe worn by war crimes prosecutors at the Hague. And the Hague is in Holland, not Sweden.)
To which I say, who cares what they think?
MAGA-world’s opinion of Smith doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. What matters is that reasonable people feel reassured that the hiring of a career prosecutor – a registered independent voter, someone with no connection to President Biden – will buttress the integrity and credibility of the Trump probes. Just wait until Smith looks with a fresh eye at the Mar-a-Lago case; Trump has already been caught red-handed with Top Secret stolen goods that he was loath to surrender.
What a movie this could be: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
And ask yourself this question: Would a guy like this agree to quit an eight-year gig prosecuting war crimes just to come home and ruin his own reputation by killing off the most serious criminal cases in American history?