Jack Smiths Accountability Effort Ends With More Freedom for Trump
In a closing argument he never got to make to a jury, Jack Smith, the former special counsel who investigated Donald J.Trump, insisted that his thwarted prosecution was righteous and that his investigators set an example “for others to fight for justice.”“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,” Mr.
Smith wrote in a final report issued in the middle of the night, while much of the country was asleep.But the culmination of his work may have in fact had the opposite effect.Given the rulings that went against him by courts that Mr.
Trump helped shape, Mr.Smith departs the most important prosecutorial job in the country over the past two years with the unintended consequence of giving Mr.
Trump and every future president more, not less, freedom from legal constraints.And the Justice Department, whose principles Mr.Smith fiercely defended in his last hours as special counsel, now enters a second Trump administration with less authority to pursue a president than it has had in half a century, after a sweeping Supreme Court decision that granted presidents broad immunity.“I have a lot of respect and sympathy for Jack Smith,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a lawyer who served in a President George W.
Bush-era special counsel investigation.“His efforts were unsuccessful, but not through any fault of his own.
The roadblocks he faced were insurmountable.”Critical rulings, from the Supreme Court and from Judge Aileen M.Cannon of Federal District Court in Southern Florida, tied Mr.
Smith’s hands, Mr.Zeidenberg said: “Sadly, the courts and the Justice Department proved themselves to be not up to the task of finding justice when the defendant is this particular former president.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
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