Regular CNN legal analyst Elie Honig took Special Prosecutor Jack Smith apart over the unprecedented manner in which he used his position to get his findings on former President Donald Trump before the general public prior to the presidential election on November 5.
In a Thursday op-ed for New York Magazine titled “Jack Smith’s October Cheap Shot,” Honig conceded that there was some new information in the lengthy brief Smith filed — which Judge Tonya Chutkan then made public — but that the value of that information was compromised by the fact that there was “no defending” the route Smith had been willing to take to ensure Trump was tried by the court of public opinion prior to Election Day.
Smith had initially wanted to try Trump before the election, Honig noted, but when that failed, he pulled out all the stops — and “bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls.”
After a brief paragraph explaining that the filing did, in fact, give some new insights into what then-President Trump was doing and who he was talking to during the riot on January 6, 2021, Honig pivoted to Smith’s legal tactics and alleged that Smith’s intent was all but certainly designed to impact the 2024 election.
Am I Racist? Is In Theaters NOW — Get Your Tickets Here!
“The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects,” Honig declared. “At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis.”
“‘But we need to know this stuff before we vote!’ is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice,” Honig continued, adding that if the DOJ had moved more quickly at the outset, they might have been able to get through the trial before the election.
In addition to violating several procedural norms, Honig concluded by arguing that Smith had also violated a major DOJ policy – namely, he was not ever supposed to “select the timing of any action … for the purpose of affecting any election.”
“Smith’s conduct here violates core DOJ principle and policy. The Justice Manual — DOJ’s internal bible, essentially — contains a section titled ‘Actions That May Have an Impact on the Election,’” Honig explained. “Now: Does Smith’s filing qualify? May it have an impact on the election? Of course. So what does the rule tell us? ‘Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.’”
