'Unconstitutional Government Actor' Committed Legit Contempt of Court

While the media fixates on phony contempt of court allegations against Trump DOJ, Special Counsel Jack Smith is the real perpetrator.

As federal judges continue to manufacture—and corporate media regurgitates without a modicum of scrutiny—contempt of court accusations against the Trump Department of Justice, a legitimate example of a federal prosecutor who flouted the law for months is routinely defended by those same reporters and “legal analysts”: the contemptuous misconduct of Special Counsel Jack Smith in the so-called documents case against President Donald Trump.

And while nearly all of the present-day contempt allegations against the Trump DOJ consist of nothing more than paperwork snafus, minor deadline delays, and reasonable errors related to an extensive nationwide deportation operation, Smith’s sustained and intentional violation of an historic court order represents one more reason why he belongs in handcuffs.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the documents case in southern Florida brought by Smith in 2023, once again reminded the public about the treachery of the special counsel and his team of thugs. Calling Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022 to take over two ongoing criminal investigations into the president, an “unconstitutional government actor,” Cannon denied a request made by two leftwing activist groups to release Smith’s “report” on the documents investigation. Cannon described the report as the “unlawful work product” of a prosecutor she disqualified and a federal indictment she dismissed in July 2024.

Detailing a series of actions Smith took after he was disqualified, Cannon called Smith’s continued involvement in the case “a concerning breach of the spirit of the Dismissal Order…if not an outright violation of it.” (As I have reported, Smith signed his name and title on briefs in the case for months leading up to his resignation in Jan. 2025. That sort of thing recently prompted a federal judge to threaten a contempt finding against former acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan in the Eastern District of Virginia, despite the fact the president had nominated Halligan—which was not the case in the Smith appointment.)

Smith’s preparation of the report, Cannon suggested, represented a clear case of contempt. “[Rather] than seek a stay of the [dismissal] Order, or clarification, Special Counsel Smith and his team chose to circumvent it, for months, by taking the discovery generated in this case and compiling it in a final report for transmission to then-Attorney General Garland, to Congress, and then beyond. The Court need not countenance this brazen stratagem or effectively perpetuate the Special Counsel’s breach of this Court’s own order.”

It wasn’t the first time Cannon has blasted Smith for his attempted end-around her order and his effort to make the documents “report” public after the election. Following Trump’s victory, Smith begrudgingly moved to drop the appeal of Cannon’s disqualification order, which was pending at the time, and the separate indictment in Washington related to the events of January 6, he nonetheless pushed to release “reports” on both investigations before Inauguration Day.

Garland released Smith’s J6 report, consisting largely of rehashed allegations covered by the January 6 Select Committee, on January 14, 2025 but a week later, Cannon upheld the release of Smith’s documents report, in large part arguing its publication would have denied the due process of the president and his two co-defendants, Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera.

Cannon also slammed Smith and the DOJ for taking such an unprecedented step. “Never before has the Department of Justice, prior to the conclusion of criminal proceedings against a defendant—and absent a litigation-specific reason as appropriate in the case itself— sought to disclose outside the Department a report prepared by a Special Counsel containing substantive and voluminous case information. Until now,” Cannon wrote in blistering order on Jan. 21, 2025. “Prosecutors play a special role in our criminal justice system and are entrusted and expected to do justice. The Department of Justice’s position [in urging the release of the report] has not been faithful to that obligation.”

But two activist groups—American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University—have since stepped in to take up Smith’s fight. The groups are currently asking the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn Cannon’s decision barring their involvement as parties in the matter; they are expected to also seek an appeal of her order issued today.

Regardless of the outcome at the appellate court, Cannon’s latest opinion gives House Republicans more fodder to pursue charges against the former special counsel. As I detailed here last month, a long list of misconduct in both cases is enough to support criminal referrals to the DOJ against Smith and at least a few of his henchmen. (A criminal referral against Thomas Windom, one of Smith’s deputies in the J6 case, for contempt of Congress is pending at DOJ.)

And in a bit of good news for a beleaguered DOJ systematically sabotaged by partisan activists on the bench and sitting on both grand and trial juries in blue cities, a case against Smith can be run out of the southern district of Florida rather than in Washington, D.C.. Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney Jason Redding Quinones reportedly is working with grand juries in that jurisdiction, including out of the Ft. Pierce courthouse run by Judge Cannon, on conspiracy investigations.

Let’s hope Cannon’s latest opinion helps move that inquiry along.