A look inside the Special Counsel’s investigation sees Jack Smith moving fast in his probe of President Donald Trump and his document usage, as well as his role in the January 6 insurrection.
Donald Trump’s Next Problem
There haven’t been many leaks, at least in the early going, from the office of Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed late last year to investigate former President Donald Trump on multiple fronts.
But a New York Times report on Sunday looked at what Smith has been doing so far.
“Through witness interviews, subpoenas, and other steps, Mr. Smith has been moving aggressively since being named to take over the inquiries nearly three months ago, seeking to make good on his goal of resolving as quickly as possible whether Mr. Trump, still a leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, should face charges,” the Times said.
This included a subpoena to former Vice President Mike Pence, which was issued last week, presumably in relation to Trump’s plot to overturn his 2020 election loss by getting Pence to reject electoral votes.
This raises the unprecedented possibility of Donald Trump and Pence running against each other for president in 2024, not only as a former presidential ticket but with the latter as a witness in an active criminal case against the former.
In addition, Evan Corcoran, a Trump lawyer, was brought before a federal grand jury, in relation to the Mar-a-Lago documents side of the investigation.
“Since returning to Washington from The Hague, where he had been a war crimes prosecutor, Mr. Smith has set up shop across town from the Justice Department’s headquarters, and has built out a team,” the Times said of Smith’s investigation.
“His operation’s structure seems to closely resemble the organization he oversaw when he ran the Justice Department’s public integrity unit from 2010 to 2015… various developments that have surfaced publicly in recent days show his team taking steps on multiple fronts, illustrating how he is wrestling with multiple and sometimes conflicting imperatives of conducting an exhaustive investigation on a strictly circumscribed timetable.”
More Problems for Trump
Smith is also said to be looking into Save America, a pro-Trump political action committee that raised money on the false claims of election fraud. And the piece indicated that Smith plans to finish up his work “before the 2024 campaign gets going in earnest,” meaning likely prior to the summer. But that could raise complications.
“The impulse to thoroughly investigate Trump’s possibly illegal actions and the impulse to complete the investigation as soon as possible, because of presidential election season, are at war with one another,” Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general, and current Harvard Law professor, told the Times. “One impulse will likely have to yield to the other.”
In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump asked why Smith isn’t investigating various acts, real and imagined, committed by his political enemies.
“Will Trump Hating Prosecutor Jack Smith be investigating the FACT that they SPIED on my campaign, even as I was in the Oval Office, they Stuffed the Ballot Boxes (per 2000 Mules), used Covid to cheat, that the FBI pushed Twitter & Facebook around, causing massive voter disruption, and so much more?,” Trump said on Truth Social over the weekend, in between shots at Super Bowl halftime show headliner Rihanna. “That’s really what he should be looking at, not asking a very decent Mike Pence why he didn’t send the votes back to State Legislatures for scrutinization, which he could have done. Get the RIGGERS!”
And Even More Problems for Trump…
And in news about another Trump investigation, a judge in Georgia announced Monday that parts of a special grand jury report related to the former president’s conduct in relation to the 2020 election would be released.
Judge Robert C.I. McBurney of Fulton County Superior Court said this week that parts of the report would be publicly released later this week.
The Fulton County District Attorney will decide whether to bring charges to a grand jury.
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Expertise and Experience: Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
