The federal criminal cases against Trump will wind down. Not because he’s innocent, but because when a criminal is elected president, national priorities take precedence over justice.
Trump has won the prerogative from voters to not be prosecuted for his crimes. Now, his political allies are casting vengeful eyes on Jack Smith, the special prosecutor hired to pursue justice in the the federal election interference and classified documents cases.
House judiciary chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), whose sole function in Congress is to harass Democrats and liberals, has asked Smith’s office “to preserve all records of the historic classified document and election interference probes.”
Nothing extraordinary about that; it’s “a routine first step in congressional inquiries, law enforcement investigations and litigation,” the Washington Post says (read story here). You can bet there will be congressional investigations if Republicans retain their House majority. There might not be hearings, though; they’d be pretty stupid to give Smith’s investigative findings a public airing. He’d turn it into a trial.
Trump ally and donor, and government contracts beneficiary, Elon Musk proclaimed, “Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.” Who actually cares what Musk says? He’s full of hot air, as always (like when he says his cars drive themselves, which they don’t, see story here).
A prosecutor who abuses the justice system can indeed be punished, but not by disgruntled defendants or hostile politicians. That’s a task for judges and bar association disciplinary boards. It would be up to them to decide whether Smith pursued groundless charges against Trump, but I highly doubt that’s the case. (Like any other criminal defendant, Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence; but I’m not a court, so I can say he sure looks guilty to me.)
The Washington Post story says, “In the final weeks of the campaign, Trump said he would quickly remove Smith and suggested deporting him.” By “quickly” he means 12:01 p.m. on January 20, 2025; but Smith undoubtedly will resign by then. And will then proceed to write a book.
It’s extremely, extremely unlikely that Smith committed any federal offense by doing his work. And if he did, he has prosecutorial immunity. Even so, given Trump’s surly nature, Biden could consider pardoning Smith as a prophylactic measure, just in case. But my guess is Smith would refuse a pardon. He has too much class to hide from bullies.
To prevent the book, Trump could order him arrested and detained incommunicado, which technically is kidnapping, but the Supreme Court will hold him harmless for that. However, Smith could still sue him in civil court for, oh, say, his last couple billion of assets.
A Democratic House majority, if there is one, would very likely impeach Trump for that. It won’t go anywhere in the Senate, you say? Probably not, but that would give Republican senators another opportunity to remove him from office, should his antics cause them severe inconvenience or they simply grow tired of him.
Deport Smith? That would be illegal, like Bush Jr.’s renditions, but I’m not saying it couldn’t be done. But while Trump has presidential immunity, his minions do not, and the underlings tasked with it not only would be kidnappers in a technical sense, but also could become convicted kidnappers in a legal sense, so Trump could have trouble finding anyone will to take it on.
I’m not saying we won’t end up living in a police state, where people are arbitrarily arrested and made to disappear. We know Trump likes that governance model. And if democracy’s guardrails continue to fail, anything could happen.
