Trump should be shaking in his shoes, but we all know he won’t. He’ll just bloviate, bluster, and try to turn the situation around to his benefit. But this is Jack Smith we’re discussing, a very dangerous man, but not in the fictional, bad boy, hidden, who has a heart, sort of dangerous. It’s his knowledge and his work. One of these days, the information on Trump and his stolen documents will be released. Then we’ll *really* know how dangerous he is, adding this into a “would have found him guilty” for the insurrection research we’ve already seen, and most interesting it was! With gratitude to Raw Story:
Jack Smith is reportedly sending a message to President Donald Trump: even as he faces the prospect of prosecution, he still possesses weaponizable information that could damage the president.
Speaking at a private event at the Cosmos Club in Washington on April 20, Smith indicated his readiness to take on potential charges and signaled he could deploy unreleased evidence should Trump move forward with retaliatory prosecution, according to video of the event obtained by The New York Times.
“But unlike others targeted by Mr. Trump, Mr. Smith still could inflict damage on the president by revealing unreleased evidence. He appears unfazed by the prospect of shifting from accuser to accused,” the Times reported [subscription required].
He is unfazed. We’ve seen him work. We’ve read the released information. We’ve heard the interviews. The DoJ is going to have a tough time with him. He prosecuted war crimes, after all. That takes a lot more than facing down Trump. It also requires showing nothing in your posture or face. Only the facts are needed. We can be quite sure Mr. Smith has those abilities down to a “T”.
The implicit threat underscores the precarious position of both men: Trump is demanding Smith’s prosecution, but doing so risks Smith going public with material that could prove damaging to the president.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump’s former lead defense lawyer, now controls whether to bring charges, a potential conflict of interest that intensifies the political stakes.
During his Cosmos Club remarks, Smith accused the Justice Department of being “corrupted” by Trump loyalists, targeting people “simply because the president doesn’t like them” and failing to investigate cases that might “uncover facts that are inconvenient narratives the president would like to press.”
Smith’s posture suggests he’s not intimidated by retaliation, according to the Times’ reporting.
People familiar with his thinking believe prosecution is “likely,” yet he continues speaking publicly about the department’s institutional crisis and appears prepared to escalate if necessary, according to the report.
Trump should really think about prosecuting Mr. Smith before he tries something stupid. But as we well know, Trump doesn’t think. He reacts. And because Mr. Smith was investigating two different cases involving him, Trump thinks he can strong-arm some sort of prosecution that, like many others, is going to fall apart under scrutiny and leave him with nothing. Mr. Smith clearly outclasses him. That has to grate.
The standoff represents an extraordinary moment in American governance: a former special counsel simultaneously under threat of prosecution while possessing evidence that could prove politically catastrophic for the sitting president.
The risk is one that appears to be understood by Republicans, who recently interviewed Smith and know he poses a “serious threat” to the president.
“And while Republicans publicly sought to spin as a victory testimony Mr. Smith gave to a congressional panel behind closed doors in February, they privately conceded that he handled himself well and posed a serious threat to Mr. Trump, given that he had a public forum to publicize his investigations,” according to the Times report.
We can wonder if anyone can point that out to Trump and have him listen. Prosecuting Jack Smith for some nonsense is going to backlash thousands of times as hard if Mr. Smith chooses to go public with his information – information that could probably bury Trump. We would *love* to see this. Mr. Smith had to close his investigations when Trump became ‘president’. But there’s nothing against prosecution when Trump isn’t in office anymore, much as he tries to spin a third term. Now, I could be completely wrong about this, but I hope I’m not. Of course, all of this is assuming Trump doesn’t leave office earlier in his lame-duck term, by whatever method. Jack Smith is holding a royal flush while Trump has “go fish”.
See you soon!
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smith probably has plenty of evidence of crimes that were outside the scope of his investgations.
Now *that* is an interesting thought. Thank you!
I hope they do charge Jack Smith. Discovery would shut it the hell down.
Exactly. There is far too much that he knows and what was done *properly*. Just because he found something doesn’t mean it made it into the case data. They have no idea who they are messing with. He can out-think any lawyer today, although that’s just my guess.
NO he can’t. There’s always David Boies. So he can “outthink ALMOST any lawyer today….” 🙂