Timing isn’t everything. But it certainly matters, and seldom more so than in special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump.
The former US president intends to use timing – delay, delay, delay – to avoid punishment for trying to overturn the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, and for fomenting a violent coup.
Nope, said Smith this week. A tough guy who has prosecuted war crimes in the Hague, Smith clearly recognizes that putting off the case until after next fall’s presidential election could let Trump off the hook.
So the prosecutor made a bold legal maneuver. Smith moved to bypass the court of appeals, whose involvement could slow things down considerably, and to go directly to the US supreme court for a decision on a foundational issue.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A tough guy who has prosecuted war crimes in the Hague, Smith clearly recognizes that putting off the case until after next fall’s presidential election could let Trump off the hook.
“Jack Smith wants to cut straight to the chase,” writes former US attorney Joyce Vance, noting that the supreme court has never decided this issue before.
“A huge and possibly brilliant move, a game changer one way or the other,” Harry Litman, a former justice department official who teaches constitutional law, wrote on Twitter/X.
Watching Jack Smith’s aggressive efforts throughout this prosecution, I can’t help but think of two earlier high-level legal situations involving presidents.
The other, much more recent, was the way special counsel Robert Mueller handled the investigation into whether Trump and his allies played ball with Russian operatives in order to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
With the help of attorney general Bill Barr’s dishonest work in interpreting it favorably on Trump’s behalf, Mueller’s report dwindled into something that ultimately didn’t matter much – though it should have.
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