The November election brought many unbelievable records, some of them historic. The most crucial was that America avoided becoming a banana republic, albeit by a whisker.
Biden-Harris administration was determined to deny former President Trump a chance to run this electoral cycle. They engaged in lawfare at every level: city, county, state, and federal. Colorado, Maine, and Illinois used state law to remove him from the ballot, only to be viciously rebuked by the United States Supreme Court 8-0. Fulton County charged Trump with criminal racketeering, making many of us wonder if America had turned into another Pakistan.
The most determined among them all was Special Counsel Jack Smith, who, armed with infinite resources from the Department of Justice, sought to bring 34 criminal counts, empaneled by friendly grand juries in Washington D.C., under an even friendlier judge, Tanya Chutkan, who ruled so many times against Trump in pretrial motions that she even invited the ire of the Supreme Court. Washington D.C. had indeed become Islamabad, Damascus, Baghdad, Tehran, Moscow, Beijing, Cairo - name your favorite world capital that goes after political enemies of those in power.
On Monday, without a trace of shame, Smith acknowledged that the American people had resoundingly spoken. He filed motions to shut down all the federal cases against Trump in Washington and Atlanta.
His Atlanta filing was especially poignant. In August, Smith had filed an appeal in the 11th Circuit, arguing that U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to dismiss the charges against Trump and his co-defendants in the classified documents case was wrong.
Smith was so determined to win that he would not take Judge Cannon's superb legal analysis in stride. She had concluded that Congress did not authorize Smith's appointment as Special Counsel and, therefore, violated the Constitution's Appointments clause. He pressed on in Atlanta as though he nursed a personal vendetta against Trump, saying that Cannon's decision deviated from legal precedent and "took inadequate account" of history.
What was especially noteworthy was that the government declined to charge President Biden with similar violations of federal law when Biden kept classified documents in his Delaware home as Obama's vice president, a far more severe case. Under the American Constitution, presidents have the ultimate authority to classify or declassify documents, not vice presidents. When Special Counsel Hur decided not to pursue charges on humanitarian grounds because Biden was a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory," Democrats in Congress erupted.
California snake oil seller Democratic Senator-elect Adam Schiff:
What you did write was deeply prejudicial to the interests of the President. You say it was not political, and yet, you must have understood the impact of your words.
Rep. Hank Johnson, a Georgia Democrat:
You're doing everything you can do to get President Trump re-elected so that you can get appointed as a federal judge, perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice. Is that correct?
Exactly six weeks later, Schiff himself was behind the plot to oust Biden because he was a man bordering on senile.
With Smith now withdrawing the Atlanta appeal, Judge Cannon's decision about the validity of Special Counsels will stand as precedent.
Smith, who has such a poor track record of winning cases that he should reconsider his career, has repeatedly been rebuked by courts over his overly aggressive legal theories. In the Supreme Court case McDonnell v. United States (2016), Smith tried to convict the former Governor of Virginia for corruption. The Court addressed the definition of "official acts" under federal bribery laws and unanimously overturned McDonnell's conviction. The decision has made it more challenging for federal prosecutors to prove corruption charges, something that they are contending with now in their case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
In the Trump immunity case in Washington, Smith knew that the Court had broadly yielded to the Chief Executive's powers. Going back to Nixon v. Fitzgerald (1982), the Supreme Court ruled that presidents have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits related to official actions taken while in office. In Clinton v. Jones (1997), the Court ruled that while a sitting president is immune from lawsuits pertaining to official acts, they are not immune from civil lawsuits involving actions unrelated to their official duties or that occurred before taking office. This clarification does not apply to Trump because he was in office at the time of his alleged actions.
Yet, Smith tried to press ahead with the Trump prosecution, and the Supreme Court heard his case. In its June ruling, the Court affirmed that presidents have absolute immunity for actions taken in their official role. Smith had used Trump's conversations with DOJ officials, especially with DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, as a critical part of his charges. The Court ruled, in another stinging rebuke of Smith, that a president's dealings with the department were part of the core official duties of his office, and for that reason, Trump was immune from prosecution.
The Court also said that a president is "at least presumptively immune from prosecution" for all dealings with his vice president. Smith aggressively pursued this track with Judge Tanya Chutkan's blessing, attempting to uncover Trump's dealings with then-Vice President Mike Pence, whom Trump allegedly pressured not to certify the election.
Smith filed the revised indictment in Washington, well aware that he was coming very close to the unwritten DOJ rule that prosecutors should not impact a presidential election 60 days out. [Smith managed to do so with nine days to spare].
All of Smith's courtroom and off-court tactics have now failed, as Smith admits defeat and moves on. The people have spoken. Washington is no longer Islamabad: goodbye, Jack Smith.
