Jack Smith Goes on the Offense

The Former Special Counsel Isn't Taking Any Prisoners.

The Vengeance Machine Targets Smith

President Trump is engaged in an “unrelenting fast-track drive” to punish the people he hates. His goal is direct: “humiliate, investigate and prosecute” his perceived enemies.

At the top of this prosecutorial hit list is Jack Smith, the former special counsel who twice indicted him, alongside the Justice Department officials who appointed him, Merrick Garland and Lisa Monaco.

Trump has publicly demanded that Republican lawmakers investigate Smith, declaring him a “criminal” who should be “put in prison” for as-yet unspecified crimes.

This is more than a personal “quest for vengeance.” It is a core political strategy to validate the MAGA canon that Trump was a “sinned-upon innocent.” To prove this, the prosecution itself must be framed as the real crime.

In this new landscape, Trump orders investigations of his enemies “like Ubers.” He uses allies like House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and a compliant FBI, led by Kash Patel, to execute these demands.

Smith’s Audacious Counter-Offer

Trump’s targets have typically not been in a position to inflict “serious retributive pain” on him. But as the New York Times recently reported, “Jack Smith is different.” He appears “unintimidated” by the threats.

In fact, “Quite the opposite.” Smith seems “eager to publicly challenge” the entire MAGA narrative. Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor, has told people in his orbit that he “welcomes the opportunity” to finally present the public case against Trump.

This was an opportunity previously “denied to him by the Supreme Court” and adverse rulings from a federal judge in Florida.

When Representative Jordan’s committee summoned Smith to testify “behind closed doors,” Smith responded by moving his “own chess pieces.”

Instead of accepting the private ambush, his lawyers demanded “public hearings.” One of his attorney’s,, Lanny Breuer, issued a direct challenge: “Name the time and place. Jack will be there.”

Dismantling the “Tapped Phone” Lie

Smith is not just defending himself; he is taking “a hammer to Mr. Trump’s exaggerated or false claims.” The central Republican claim, which animates their investigation, is that Smith “went beyond the bounds of an impartial investigation.”

Senator Josh Hawley, for example, claimed the FBI “tapped” his phone. This was a deliberate falsehood. The document in question revealed only that Smith’s team sought approval to retrieve “metadata.”

This routine investigative tool, also known as “toll records,” shows call logs but not the content of conversations. It is not wiretapping. Smith’s team exposed this hypocrisy by noting it is a “standard, bipartisan practice.”

Special Counsel Robert Hur did it when investigating former President Biden. More pointedly, Trump’s own Justice Department obtained the records of Democratic representatives Adam Schiff (now a senator) and Eric Swalwell, and Republicans “were silent.”

The “Cyber Lockbox” Fantasy

The second smear came from FBI Director Kash Patel. Patel claimed Smith hid the toll records so “’no one would find it,’” putting them in a “’lockbox in a vault, and then put that vault in a cyber place.’”

This bizarre conspiracy, dubbed the “’turducken of information hiding’” by former FBI official Andy McCabe, was met with a masterstroke of professional deadpan from Smith’s team.

They replied: “It is not clear what cyber place in a vault in a lockbox Director Patel is describing.” They then delivered the facts. The use of toll records was “mentioned in the indictment.”

Furthermore, Smith’s team “provided these very toll records to Trump and his lawyer... two years ago during discovery.” Trump’s team “never complained.” The current outrage is not a discovery; it is “manufactured political theater.”

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The Checkmate Maneuver

Smith’s demand for a public showdown is a “checkmate maneuver” in a high stakes political chess game. It has backed his opponents into a corner, and they are “divided on precisely how to proceed.”

Republican lawmakers now face a political trap. Senior Republicans like Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson are “less enthusiastic” about a public hearing. They fear that “rushing into a hearing would play into Mr. Smith’s hands.”

Others have privately worried that giving a “credible anticorruption investigator an open mic” could “backfire.” If they grant Smith his public hearing, they give a “national platform” to the very man they tried to discredit, armed with facts.

If they deny his request, which Jim Jordan is expected to do, they “appear to be hiding the truth.”

Smith wins either way, all while GOP lawmakers are forced to pursue an issue of “searing import to the president but of little interest to voters in battleground districts.”

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