In theory, as special counsel Jack Smith prepares to abandon his criminal cases against Donald Trump, Republicans should be celebrating his looming departure, waving goodbye, and hoping the public forgets about the voluminous evidence he compiled against the president-elect.
In practice, it’s not quite working out that way.
On Friday, two leading House Republicans — House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Administration Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk — sent Smith a letter, demanding that he preserve documents as part of a GOP investigation into his investigation. Soon after, conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk, who amplified the Jordan-Loudermilk correspondence, added, “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.”
The same day, a member of Trump’s team sent a warning shot by way of The Washington Post, saying the president-elect would “react extremely poorly” if the special counsel takes any additional public steps. The unnamed adviser added in comments to the Post that the next Justice Department will look “critically” at what Smith’s team did over the past couple of years to “make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”
I’m not even sure what that means. The special counsel and his team were tasked with investigating a criminal. They uncovered extensive evidence of wrongdoing, took the evidence to a grand jury, secured indictments and filed charges. Team Trump wants “make sure nothing like this ever happens again”? That’s the sort of phrase that suggests the incoming Trump administration will be at least as hostile toward the rule of law as the first administration, if not more so.
But two days after Jordan sent new demands to Smith, he also opened an interesting door. NBC News reported:
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on Sunday said that he and his House Republican colleagues are “not taking anything off the table” related to investigating special counsel Jack Smith.
When CNN’s Dana Bash asked the right-wing congressman several times on “State of the Union” whether he intends to call on Smith to testify, Jordan wouldn’t answer directly. The Ohio Republican did say, however, “That’s been the norm, but we’re not taking anything off the table. We’re not saying for sure, but we want the information.”
Jordan isn’t alone. The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus explained in her latest column that Trump adviser Mike Davis has raised the prospect of various forms of legal jeopardy for Smith.
“There should be several investigations: House Judiciary, Senate Judiciary, DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility and a criminal probe,” he told the Post. Davis added during a Newsmax interview that Smith “should go to prison for engaging in a criminal conspiracy against President Trump.”
Obviously, the offensive against the special counsel is quite bonkers, and there’s literally no evidence to suggest the person accused of felonies is the hero of this story, while the prosecutor is the villain.
But what the right might not fully appreciate is the course Democrats prefer.
On the surface, it might seem that Democrats would want to avoid yet another partisan spectacle in which GOP members of Congress yell at the special counsel for several hours, while Trump appointees harass Smith and his team. But just below the surface, a different kind of dynamic comes into focus.
Shan Wu, a legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, wrote a good piece on this for MSNBC:
Investigations carried out by Congress … can be a double-edged sword for Republicans. A probe in this case will involve testimony about and the disclosure of that evidence Jordan and Loudermilk want preserved. Such a proceeding may not be what Trump wants, given that it puts a renewed focus on acts that resulted in dozens of criminal charges against him, both federal and state.”
Quite right. Smith apparently won’t have an opportunity to advance his criminal cases in the courts, but there might yet be an opportunity for him and his team to share their findings — perhaps through a final special counsel report, through congressional testimony, or both.
Democrats don’t want Republican scrutiny of Smith to end; they want it to continue indefinitely, with as much public discussion as possible of all the many crimes Trump has been accused of committing.
