Last week, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a seemingly innocuous and accomplished attorney, Jack Smith, to investigate President Donald J. Trump over his possession of declassified documents and to rehash the January 6th investigation.
Let’s be clear. In spite of the corporate media’s breathless pronouncements over how wonderful Smith is, he is just another corrupt part of the Justice Department’s political hit squad.
In 2010, after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision which affirmed 501(c)4 non-profit corporations right to participate in some political activity, Jack Smith in his position as the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Integrity, set up a meeting with the Internal Revenue Service’s Lois Lerner to coordinate efforts so those who followed the law would be prosecuted.
Astonishingly, it was Lerner who specifically objected to the Justice Department criminalizing political speech killing Smith’s legal harassment plan.
Remember, Smith knew about the Citizens United decision, in fact his actions were in reaction to it. He just didn’t agree with it. So he attempted to deny and discourage people from setting up the legal structure which the federal government deems necessary to raise money for advocacy by subjecting those who sought to follow the law to being prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights.
You see, the punishment is not necessarily in being found guilty, the punishment is having to endure years of expensive legal bills to defend your right to legally petition the government. Jack Smith knew this and sought to use his position to drive those who dared to engage in their Constitutional right to political speech into giving up, personal bankruptcy or worse through political prosecution.
Yeah, this is the guy who will be an impartial Special Counsel – NOT!
In 2014, Jack Smith led a prosecution of then-Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on public corruption charges. After getting convicted, McDonnell left office. Years later, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction by a vote of 8-0.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion rejecting the “boundless” definition of what constitutes corruption as Smith’s prosecution did not include any proof that there was an explicit agreement linking a gift or donation to an action by the elected official.
Effectively, Smith went with the theory that if someone gave you a donation, then any action that you took benefitting that person or company must be corrupt. Under that theory, a politician could be found guilty of taking a bribe if they voted for gun control after taking a donation or being supported by a gun control group. Or if a friend gave a Christmas gift, and later on won a competitive grant, the politician who received the gift could be presume to be guilty of taking a bribe.
But, Jack Smith is not only someone who sees corruption around every corner with a Republican on it, whether it exists or not, his wife is a hyper-partisan. In a fluff piece making Smith look like a middle of the road apolitical prosecutor published in the Wall Street Journal, Smith is described as a registered Independent with few stated political opinions. And put away any notion that the Wall
Street Journal is a pro-Trump voice as its owner has stated that he won’t support Trump this election cycle.
There is nothing illegal about the fact that Smith’s wife, Katy Chevigny contributed $2,000 to the Biden for President campaign against President Trump in 2020, and is listed as a producer of the Michele Obama documentary “Becoming.”
This provides at least a reason to doubt Smith’s ability to investigate President Trump for the umpteenth time. Since investigating Trump is the only reason Smith’s job exists, his wife’s opposition to Trump and fawning media work for Michele Obama is relevant.
When combined with the actions Smith took in both seeking to prosecute tea party activists attempting to legally exercise their First Amendment rights with his Supreme Court rejected redefinition of corruption that successfully took out an up-and-coming GOP governor, it is clear that he is unsuitable to be considered an objective Special Counsel.
The above facts are not unknown to Attorney General Garland, making it difficult to conclude that his appointment is designed to find Donald Trump guilty of something, anything, in order to prevent him from winning the presidency in 2024. It seems clear that Smith’s history of pursuing wild legal theories against high-profile Republicans and seeking to prosecute conservative activists for exercising their rights, were seen by the AG as his qualifiers rather than black marks against him.
America will now be subjected to episode four of the left’s abuse of federal governmental prosecutorial power in their never-ending Get Trump obsession. It is sad, truly sad.
Rick Manning is the president of Americans for Limited Government