Former particular counsel Jack Smith defended his prosecutions of now-President Donald Trump, whereas criticizing the conduct of the Justice Division below the Trump administration, in a current look in the UK.
Chatting with MSNBC’s Andrew Weissmann at an occasion on the College School London on Oct. 8, Smith rejected the concept his work on the 2 indictments he secured in opposition to Trump was politically motivated.
“The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case or who got chosen is ludicrous,” Smith mentioned. “The idea that politics would play a role in big cases like this, it’s absolutely ludicrous, and it’s totally contrary to my experience as a prosecutor.”
Smith additionally criticized the workings of the Trump Justice Division, together with the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey days after Lindsey Halligan, a former White Home aide, changed Erik Siebert as U.S. Lawyer for the Jap District of Virginia after he resigned below stress from the Trump administration over his failure to carry legal instances in opposition to Comey or New York State Lawyer Basic Letitia James.
“The apolitical prosecutors who analyzed this said there wasn’t a case and so they brought somebody in who had never been a criminal prosecutor on day’s notice to secure an indictment a day before the statute of limitations ended,” he mentioned in reference to Comey’s case. “That just reeks of lack of process.”
James has since been indicted on financial institution fraud and making false statements to a monetary establishment.
Smith additionally had harsh phrases for the Justice Division’s choice to throw out New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case after Adams agreed to work with the White Home on the president’s plans to crack down on immigration.
“Nothing like it has ever happened that I’ve ever heard of,” Smith mentioned in reference to the Adams case.
Smith additionally issued a prescient warning concerning the Justice Division’s future amid assaults on nonpartisan public servants.
“It’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us,” he mentioned. “If you think getting rid of the people who know most about national security is going to make our country safer, you do not know anything about national security.”
AP Photograph/Jacquelyn Martin, File
Individually, Smith mentioned he was “disappointed” within the Supreme Court docket’s presidential immunity ruling. “There was never a question that we were going to follow the law as the Supreme Court said the law now was,” he added.
“I think once we get in a position where we start talking about maybe not following court opinions we don’t like, we are lost in terms of the rule of law,” Smith mentioned amid considerations of a constitutional disaster within the U.S.
In the meantime, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the chair of the Home Judiciary Committee, is calling on Smith to seem earlier than the panel by Oct. 28, describing his testimony as “necessary to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement.”
Smith has but to reply to Jordan’s request.
Smith prosecuted two instances in opposition to Trump — one over his alleged mishandling of categorized paperwork and one other over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Each instances have been dismissed in November 2024 following Trump’s reelection. Smith resigned in January after submitting his investigative report on Trump.
