REPUBLICAN CHUTZPAH: COMPLAINING ABOUT PROSECUTORIAL ABUSE

SMEARING JACK SMITH

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Donald Trump is following the playbook of authoritarians, radically rewriting or expunging history that conflicts with their narrative or interests.

In 1933, the new German rulers decreed the country really didn’t lose World War I, but was victimized by internal sabotage, chiefly the Jews and socialists. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is rewriting Hungary’s alliance with the Nazis in World War II.

Already the President declares the Russian interference in 2016 was a hoax; he won the 2020 election; storm troopers who violently ransacked the Capitol on January 6 were just peaceful protestors; the prosecutors and investigators who went after, often successfully, criminals, actually were the criminals themselves.

Among the latest targets is Jack Smith, the Trump special prosecutor whose work was derailed by the Republican Supreme Court and an inexperienced Trump loving federal judge in Florida. Instead of the straight shooting prosecutor that he is, Trump and his congressional allies are trying to paint him as a partisan hatchet man who, on orders from Joe Biden, was out to get Trump.

House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan and the 92 year old Senate Judiciary committee chair Charles Grassley -- or his staff -- demand that Smith testify on what they label the Arctic Frost scandal. They express outrage that Smith sought the records of over 400 Republicans and looked at the phone records of eight United States Senators.

They want him to testify in private so they can then selectively leak what they want.

Calling their bluff, the former special prosecutor says sure I’ll testify at a public session. In a letter to Grassley, Smith’s lawyers wrote that given the “mischaracterization” of his work, public testimony would be necessary. They concur with Grassley’s implication it would be improper for a President to direct Justice Department officials to investigate or prosecute specific individuals, particularly a political adversary.

It’s mind-boggling that Grassley or any Republican would raise that as there is no evidence that Biden, for all the contempt he has for Trump, played any role in Smith’s investigation. Indeed, the White House privately was critical of Attorney General Merrick Garland for moving too slowly on these investigations.

What makes Jordan and Grassley so blatantly hypocritical is that it’s Trump who openly called on the Justice Department to investigate his enemies, former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letita James, which they obediently did. It’s worse; he had experienced prosecutors fired when they wouldn’t bring specious charges and to get the job done installed an inexperienced real estate lawyer -- and Trump loyalist -- who charged his enemies.

Expect these cases either to be dismissed before trial or a quick acquittal.

Jordan, who still has his own scandal over accusations that he covered up sexual abuses as an Ohio State coach decades ago, hasn’t criticized any of this and has stiffed Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on his committee, for a public hearing for Smith.

These Republicans should look a quarter century ago at their predecessors who invited Bill Clinton special prosecutor Ken Starr to a public forum where, in lurid detail, he assailed the President and discredited himself in the process. Jack Smith would acquit himself well if given an opportunity.

The Grassley charge of a Smith partisan witch hunt is smoke and mirrors. He requested information on 430 Republicans. Shocking, Senator, if you disregard these investigations were about a Republican illicitly retaining classified information after he left office and lying about it, and trying to overturn a fair election.

The clear legitimacy of the election was attested in scores of court cases, reviews, recounts and even by Trump 1.0 officials. Joe Biden won and Trump tried to overturn that, culminating in the January 6 violent attack on the Capitol.

What most infuriates these Republicans is Smith had the audacity to subpoena phone records of eight GOP Senators. He didn’t tap their phones but, with a court order, looked at their calls right before and after the January 6 insurrection.

One was Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Senator who called the Georgia Secretary of State to check on disqualifying votes. A special grand jury even recommended Graham be charged, though the local prosecutor declined.

Another part of the charge against Trump was an effort to send false electors to Congress. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, one of those whose phone records were examined, had a staff member try to deliver alternative electors to Vice President Mike Pence, who refused to take them. A third Senator, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, had a phone conversation with Trump in the middle of the violence.

It would have been a dereliction of duty for a prosecutor to ignore those involvements. Yet Senate GOP leader John Thune slipped into this week’s spending bill a provision that allows these Senators -- privileged folks that they are, better than you or me -- to bring an action against the government and receive up to $500,000 from taxpayers.

Smith certainly made mistakes as chronicled in a new book “Injustice” by Aaron Davis and Carol Leonnig, one of Washington’s best reporters. He mistakenly tried the classified documents case in Florida, which he thought would be more credible; in a terrible luck of the draw the case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump sycophant. She dismissed a powerful case.

Some of his assistants suggested Smith was too insular, the book reports, and others wondered whether the January 6 case, even with all the visible evidence, could produce a rock solid criminal conviction.

Unlike the Trump Justice team -- Pam Bondi and Todd Blanche and the acting U.S. Attorney in Virginia -- Smith didn’t consult with the White House, much less take orders. Even with the unfortunate ending, these were serious cases with serious charges by a serious prosecutor.

The Grassley-Jordan efforts to smear Jack Smith won’t change that.