Donald Trump appears worried as Jack Smith probe reaches “advanced stages”, indications are that the special counsel looking into Donald Trump’s role in January 6 and the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation is advancing- and that Trump is worried.
There have been quite a few reports in recent months that Jack Smith’s Special Counsel investigation is “ramping up” or “gaining momentum.” The Wall Street Journal, this week, reported that the probe “heats up” and has reached “advanced stages.”
In other words, Donald Trump has reason to be worried.
Smith has taken “a flurry of aggressive steps in recent weeks,” although the Journal noted that many of them, such as the subpoenas to former Vice President Mike Pence and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, will likely spend months in the courts.
“In a typical case, these top-level, inner-circle people are some of the last people you’d expect to be subpoenaed,” former prosecutor and now law professor Randall Eliason told the Journal.
“You don’t talk to them at the beginning of the investigation, because you don’t know enough yet. Just looking at that, when I see subpoenas to the highest-level inner-circle people, that makes me think they’re close to wrapping up.”
The report also said that Smith is expected to issue a final report whenever he wraps up his work, whether or not charges are ultimately brought.
The Heat is on For Donald Trump
Also, according to the Journal, Smith has been questioning Trump’s lawyers.
It quoted a Donald Trump attorney as stating that “the only reason to focus on the lawyers is where you don’t have a solid underlying case.”
There are indications that Trump is worried about the probe.
On Monday, Trump took to Truth Social and called the veteran prosecutor a “Mad Dog Psycho.”
“Jack Smith, put there for only one reason by Biden, and the Weaponized Justice Department, should stop this Witch Hunt altogether or, at a minimum, should give Biden, Obama, and all of the others the same treatment,” Trump said in the Truth Social post.
The following day, on the same platform, Trump called Smith a “Psycho ‘Prosecutor,’” a “thug,” and accused him of being a “massive Trump Hater.”
On the other hand, he referred to the Special Counsel investigating Biden’s own documents case, Robert K. Hur, as a “nice guy.”
In the recent past, per MSNBC, Trump has denounced Smith as a “Trump Hater” and “political hit man” and a “politically-weaponized monster.”
“What matters most is the former president’s apparent panic: He appears desperate to discredit a highly respected career prosecutor, and he apparently believes frantic online tantrums will do the trick,” MSNBC’s Maddow Blog said of the social posts.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran a big report Wednesday morning about arguments between FBI agents and prosecutors, prior to the raid on Mar-a-Lago last year, the case that forms the other part of the Special Counsel investigation.
It’s a story that appears to contradict Trump’s frequent insinuations that the FBI and Justice Department are conspiring against him.
“Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property,” was how the Post described the dispute. “But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation.”
The prosecutors ultimately won the argument.
Also on Wednesday, Trump “re-Truthed” an account with the name WWG1WGA — a QAnon slogan standing for “when we go one, we go all” — predicting that Trump would win the 2024 election.
The post stated that a 2024 win would make Trump “only the 2nd President to have won at least 3 Presidential Elections,” which takes it as a given that Trump “won” the 2020 election.
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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.
