Jack Smith Will Not Save Us

The New York Times said he looked “pale and tired” Thursday. I would not have described former Special Advisor Jack Smith that way; maybe “depressed”. But maybe that’s a projection. Smith defiantly asked House Republicans to let him testify publicly about his investigations and the accusations against Donald Trump. Thursday, against all expectations, they authorized it. Also unexpectedly, he didn’t seem defiant. He seemed resigned to the futility of his cause and the likelihood that he and his colleagues would continue to be persecuted, even prosecuted, because of their work.

It depressed me. It shouldn’t have. We already knew Smith had to drop his charges against Trump when, incredibly, the American people made him president again, despite widespread evidence of the disgraced and twice-impeached huckster’s many crimes. The January 6 House Select Committee exposed much of this publicly. Smith, even after dropping his charges, made the findings of his investigation public in a blunt report last year. He testified privately before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 17, and over the recess, Republicans released a transcript and video of that appearance, which also laid the groundwork for his sweeping case against Trump. I didn’t know why House Republicans decided to let Smith testify publicly on Thursday; Some media analysts have suggested they may be setting a perjury trap for him, trying to give corrupt Attorney General Pam Bondi ammunition to prosecute him.

Trump apparently hoped so too. Midway through his testimony, he posted on social media: “Jack Smith is a deranged animal, who should not be allowed to practice law” and suggested that “I hope” Bondi “looks at what he’s done.”

If so, she probably didn’t find much, if anything (even if the truth doesn’t matter to Trump or his minions). Smith carefully repeated much of his December testimony, sometimes verbatim. He did not respond to Republican mockery or Democratic praise. He seemed, to be honest, defeated. Which I suppose.

I’m not saying he punched. “Our investigation found that Donald Trump was the person who provoked January 6, that it was predictable for him, and that he sought to exploit the violence,” he told the commission. He continued: “No one should be above the law in this country, and the law required that [Trump] be held responsible. So that’s what I did.

Smith continued: “I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law operate in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.…The rule of law is not self-enforcing.” And he acknowledged that the Trump administration would “do everything in its power” to charge him “because the president asked it to do so.”

“I will not be intimidated,” he insisted.

I don’t think he was intimidated, but he was certainly discouraged. The closest he came to showing emotion was when he said he wished he had shown more appreciation for what his investigators had done, since many of them have been fired or are under investigation for their work on the Trump investigations.