Jack Smith s October Surprise – WSJ

Politics hath no fury like a prosecutor scorned, and it appears the American electorate won t be allowed to forget it. That s the best read of special counsel Jack Smith s newly unsealed filing in his criminal case against Donald Trump. Congratulations, Attorney General Merrick Garland: You ve got your own 2024 election interference story line.

Mr. Smith filed the 165-page brief last week, his latest response to an embarrassing defeat at the Supreme Court in July. The justices rapped him for ignoring a weighty question in his Jan. 6 indictment, ruling that a president is entitled to immunity for exercising core constitutional powers. That decision requires a pretrial proceeding in which the trial judge sifts which of the allegedly criminal acts count as official, and ultimately ended any prospect of a trial before the election. A sober litigator would have stepped back, allowed the voters to render their judgment on Mr. Trump and his bad behavior, and regroup in November.

Here s what Mr. Smith did instead. He rushed to file a superseding indictment in August that alleged the same four crimes, taking a minuscule view of core constitutional powers. He then requested the trial judge allow him to file an oversized brief up to 180 pages laying out the government s arguments against immunity, and asking her to unseal it. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted the requests, ignoring the Trump legal team s opposition to a brief that was quadruple the standard page limits and that allowed the prosecution to proffer their untested and biased views to the Court and the public as if they are conclusive. That brief was made public on Wednesday, 34 days before the election.

via www.wsj.com

Kimberly Strassel.

I think AG Garland is checked out now himself. HS may be more ambulatory than his boss, but c’mon man, he needs to retire. Not that it would do much good at this point.