The author is the editor of ticklethewire.com and a former reporter for the Washington Post.
By Allan Lengel
When Donald Trump ran for office, he promised to eviscerate politics at the Department of Justice. He also vowed to seek revenge against his enemies. At least he kept his promise on the latter.
In what can only be seen as an act of revenge, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel—the agency that enforces a law against partisan political activity by federal employees—is investigating former Special Counsel Jack Smith to determine whether he violated the Hatch Act, which forbids certain political activities. Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump ally, strongly suggested the probe.
NBC reports that Trump and his allies have not presented specific evidence of wrongdoing. Perhaps the independent counsel could have waited to see even a shred of evidence against Smith before taking on the assignment.
Smith was simply doing his job after being appointed special counsel by then–Attorney General Merrick Garland in November 2022.
If you’re wondering why the criminal charges against Trump came so late in the game, look no further than Garland himself, who aimed to avoid political controversy by ignoring Trump’s alleged crimes. It was only after the Jan. 6 Committee laid out a convincing case for criminal charges that Garland was shamed into launching a probe.
Even then, he took the cautious step of appointing a special counsel—Jack Smith. And then Trump’s attorneys filed every motion possible to derail the cases, or at least delay them until after the 2024 election.
Anytime a prosecutor goes after a political figure, the perception of politics inevitably comes into play. There’s no avoiding that—especially in the case of Trump, who used his public bullhorn to scream bloody murder from every mountaintop.
Smith’s cases were solid—or at least a grand jury thought so, finding probable cause to indict.
Had he not been elected, President Trump might have been occupying the jailhouse, not the White House.
This, unfortunately, is just another case of Trump weaponizing and politicizing the DOJ—quite the opposite of what he promised. Trump’s DOJ fired a number of prosecutors for simply doing their jobs, including Maurene Comey, the daughter of ex-FBI Director James Comey, who was handling the Jeffrey Epstein case. She was given no reason for the firing. The same goes for DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer, who was escorted out of the building without notice.
The corruption at the White House started from the get-go. Instead of examining individuals charged in the Jan. 6 riot, Trump simply pardoned or commuted the sentences of the violators—including those who violently attacked police officers trying to protect the democratic process at the Capitol that day. And then there’s the DOJ’s dismissal of the federal indictment against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The examples are simply too many to cite. Which is to say: this is no way to run a democracy.
