Ex-Trump prosecutor faces Office of Special Counsel investigation and given stern warning

Daily Mail​

3 days ago

The United States Office of Special Counsel appears set to give former federal prosecutor Jack Smith a taste of his own medicine, opening an investigation into his conduct.
Smith resigned from his position in January after completing two criminal investigations into Donald Trump which he later said would've seen the president convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States had he not won the election.
Now, Smith faces an investigation into whether he was engaging in political activities during the investigation which would be a violation of the Hatch Act.
'I appreciate the Office of Special Counsel taking this seriously and launching an investigation into Jack Smith's conduct. No one is above the law,' wrote OSC Senior Counsel Charles Baldis in a letter obtained by The New York Post.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment.
Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton - the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee - spurred the investigation by writing a letter to acting OSC Chairman Jamison Greer.
'Jack Smith's legal actions were nothing more than a tool for the Biden and Harris campaigns. This isn't just unethical, it is very likely illegal campaign activity from a public office,' he wrote.
Cotton praised the decision to look into what Smith was doing in a statement.
'Jack Smith's actions were clearly driven to hurt President Trump's election, and Smith should be held fully accountable,' he said.
Following his resignation, Smith stood by his decision to bring charges against Trump and insisted he would have been convicted of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States had he not won the election for president in a bombshell January 6 report.
In a scathing statement issued along with the report, Smith admonished Trump for what he described as excessive lies and deceit to upend the American enterprise.
'The throughline of all of Mr. Trump's criminal efforts was deceit - knowingly false claims of election fraud - and the evidence shows that Mr. Trump used these lies as a weapon to defeat a federal government function foundational to the United States' democratic process,' the report states.
Trump quickly slammed the report in a Truth Social post.
'Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his 'boss,' Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another 'Report' based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were,' the post read.
The president-elect then followed it up with two more missives to his social media platform.
'To show you how desperate Deranged Jack Smith is, he released his Fake findings at 1:00 A.M. in the morning. Did he say that the Unselect Committee illegally destroyed and deleted all of the evidence.'
He followed it up with his trademark: 'MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'
With the prosecution foreclosed thanks to Trump's election victory, the 137-page document was expected to be the final Justice Department chronicle of the probes.
Smith, who resigned after completing two criminal investigations, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland that he believed had Trump stood trial on the charges, he would have been convicted.
'The department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a president is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government's proof or the merits of the prosecution, which the office stands fully behind,' Smith wrote.
'Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the presidency, the office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial,' he added.
Trump called Smith 'a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!'
Smith wrote the report, which was transmitted to Congress early Tuesday after a judge refused to block its release. It describes prosecutors' charging decisions in the case that resulted in Trump being indicted for taking a trove of national security documents to Mar-a-Lago.
They also include the decision to charge Trump with heading a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election.
The document includes, for the first time, a detailed assessment from Smith about his investigation, as well as a defense by Smith against criticism by Trump and his allies that the investigation was politicized.
Though Smith sought to salvage the indictment, the team dismissed it entirely in November because of longstanding Justice Department policy that says sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
'While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters,' Smith continued.
'I believe the example our team set for others to fight for justice without regard for the personal costs matters.'
Another 'significant challenge' was Trump's 'ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, prosecutors,' which led prosecutors to seek a gag order to protect potential witnesses from harassment, Smith wrote.
'Mr. Trump's resort to intimidation and harassment during the investigation was not new, as demonstrated by his actions during the charged conspiracies,' Smith wrote.
'A fundamental component of Mr. Trump's conduct underlying the charges in the Election Case was his pattern of using social media - at the time, Twitter - to publicly attack and seek to influence state and federal officials, judges, and election workers who refused to support false claims that the election had been stolen or who otherwise resisted complicity in Mr. Trump's scheme,' he added.
Smith also for the first time explained the thought process behind his team's prosecution decisions, writing that his office decided not to charge Trump with incitement in part because of free speech concerns, or with insurrection because he was the sitting president at the time and there was doubt about proceeding to trial with the offense - of which there was no record of having been prosecuted before.
The special counsel brought a superseding indictment in the January 6th case that narrowed the case after the Supreme Court issued issued its summer decision giving presidents presidential immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office.
Trump was charged with willful retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, in a case Cannon dismissed this summer that was on appeal when Trump won the November election.
Trump's team previously argued that the report, under DOJ regulations, merely spews 'conspiracy theories,' and say it is unfair to release it, saying it violates his presumption of innocence. Trump, meanwhile, has continued to attack Smith publicly.
The DOJ said the volume on the classified documents case would be provided to key members of Congress for both parties for private review in redacted form.
'This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendant´s interests,' DOJ wrote.
Once Trump took office January 20th, his own Justice Department got to make determinations on whether the report on the classified documents case ever gets released. Trump has repeatedly called the prosecutions against him 'witch hunts.'
He appointed loyalist former Florida AG Pam Bondi to lead the agency.