The Incorrigible Mr. Smith

The Biden DOJ's $50 million man defiantly defended his unprecedented indictments behind closed doors. But his version of airtight cases devoid of political taint defy reality.

A raggedly-looking Jack Smith trudged alongside a pack of reporters and onlookers as he made his way to a Congressional hearing room on Wednesday to testify about his role as special counsel under the Biden regime. Smith, responding to a subpoena issued earlier this month by the House Judiciary Committee, refused to answer questions shouted by reporters, who always inexplicably treat Smith like some sort of rock star rather than the perpetual legal loser he actually is.

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s $50 Million Man appeared glum in public but reportedly turned feisty during the eight-hour deposition behind closed doors. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) emerged from the deposition during the afternoon and claimed Smith was “schooling the Judiciary Committee on the professional responsibilities of a prosecutor and the ethical duties of a prosecutor.” Smith also “became emotional and choked up” while discussing the professional fate of corrupt FBI agent Walter Giardina, who was fired recently by FBI Director Kash Patel for his involvement in numerous lawfare pursuits of the president including Arctic Frost, shortly after Giardina’s wife died of cancer. (As Mollie Hemingway appropriately noted, “family concerns are no reason to keep shockingly bad FBI agents on a taxpayer funded salary.”)

In his opening statement—leaked in advance to some of his favorite reporters—Smith smugly defended the unprecedented criminal indictments he brought in 2023 against the former president and leading Republican presidential candidate. Smith insisted his investigation into the events of January 6 resulted in evidence that showed “beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.” His team also allegedly found “powerful evidence” to support the so-called classified document indictment in Florida.

“The decision to bring charges against President Trump was mine, but the basis for those charges rests entirely with President Trump and his actions, as alleged in the indictments returned by grand juries in two different districts,” Smith told the committee, headed by Rep. James Jordan.

Smith’s Holier-Than-Thou Routine Doesn’t Match the Facts

But Smith’s dishonest framing of the grand jury process on his watch represents just one of the many corrupt aspects of his work; a grand jury in Florida brought the first indictment against the president in June 2023 after the entire investigation, including grand jury testimony, was conducted in the Trump-loathing cesspool known as the D.C. federal courthouse.

The Biden DOJ then Smith, following his appointment in November 2022, kept the investigation in Washington to secure favorable rulings by a grand jury made up of voters in the most Democratic city in the country and by two Obama-appointed chief judges—Beryl Howell and James Boasberg—who rubber-stamped every request made by the DOJ related to both sprawling investigations.

For example, does anyone believe a Florida federal judge, particularly Judge Aileen Cannon in the southern district of Florida, would have cited the “crime fraud exception” in authorizing the disclosure of highly privileged attorney-client correspondence between Trump and his lawyer, as Howell did in March 2023?

Smith’s use of a DC-based grand jury until the very end of the investigation—the New York Times suggested the pre-indictment switch from Washington to Florida, the appropriate jurisdiction since the alleged crimes took place in Palm Beach, involved “prosecutors…simply hav[ing] to read the early grand jury transcripts to the new grand jurors or hav[ing] federal agents offer them a summary of the most important points”—was regularly questioned by Cannon during court proceedings. At one point, she suggested Trump’s lawyers should pursue an abuse of grand jury investigation; after she busted the special counsel’s office for operating two grand juries in the case, one in Washington and one in Florida, Smith shut down the D.C. based one in August 2023. (The Biden DOJ and Boasberg repeatedly refused to turn over grand jury materials to Cannon as late as one year into the case.)

Trump’s Win was a Victory of Sorts for Smith

And while Smith continues to defend the legitimacy of the documents case, as I wrote here, the special counsel was lucky that Cannon dismissed the indictment in July 2024 after determining his appointment violated the Constitution. Not only was the case falling apart amid credible allegations related to prosecutorial misconduct, doctored and missing evidence, unsubstantiated basis for the obstruction counts, and damning details of the FBI’s armed raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, Cannon was blowing the lid off the DOJ’s collaboration with the National Archives and Biden White House to concoct the case. (My explainer here.)

Further, Smith’s team and Cannon were increasingly at odds in the courtroom. One day after her court-ordered docketing of the MAL raid documents, Cannon warned David Harbach, one of Smith’s lead attorneys in the case, to “calm down” during another Harbach temper tantrum in May 2024. “I still have inherent authority to oversee this proceeding and ensure that professionalism is maintained,” Cannon reminded Harbach. She had earlier warned Harbach that if he could not be respectful in court, he would be removed.

Things were not going much better for Smith at the time in the J6 case in Washington. The Supreme Court’s immunity decision on July 1, 2024 gutted a significant portion of Smith’s four-count indictment against the president, resulting in the removal of nine pages and one unindicted “co-conspirator,” former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark. Although Smith’s revised indictment included the president’s communications with Vice President Mike Pence, SCOTUS indicated in the historic decision that those interactions would be covered by presidential immunity as well.

So Smith, who resigned in January, arrogantly insists his cases against the president were airtight and scuttled only because Trump won the election, a review of recent history in both matters prove otherwise. Now it is incumbent upon Congressional Republicans to make sure Smith’s unearned bravado crumbles under the harsh light of reality as the investigation into his conduct continues.