Jack Smith Defends Radical Theory That Presidents Must Obey Laws

Jack Smith defended before the Senate Judiciary Committee the radical proposition that presidents may be investigated when evidence suggests they committed crimes, an extremist legal doctrine previously found only in the Constitution, federal statutes and several centuries of courtroom practice. The former special counsel stood by cases accusing Donald Trump of attempting to overturn the 2020 election and retaining classified documents, insisting that prosecutors had assembled evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The declaration recklessly elevated documents, witnesses and sworn testimony above the nation’s customary standard for presidential innocence: whether Trump denied everything loudly enough while standing near an American flag.

Republicans warned that Smith’s approach could create a terrifying precedent under which laws apply to politicians even after they have called those laws unfair on television. “Nobody has ever seen evidence used like this, because any evidence against me is automatically fake, probably planted, and also election interference by very sick people who hate America,” Trump said, accurately summarizing the Founders’ intention that criminal liability be determined by confidence, television ratings and the number of capital letters in a social-media post. Senator Eric Schmitt sought to expose Smith’s corruption by questioning him about an Atlanta Hawks game Smith did not attend, applying the Senate’s most advanced investigative method: making an accusation so forcefully that the calendar is expected to revise itself.

Smith also defended subpoenas seeking lawmakers’ phone records connected to the Jan. 6 investigation, alarming senators who had understood congressional oversight to mean that Congress watches prosecutors while prosecutors politely avert their eyes from Congress. Committee Republicans noted that reviewing communications, interviewing witnesses and comparing statements with records could permanently damage Washington’s honor system, under which elected officials are presumed uninvolved whenever they say “witch hunt” before breakfast. Smith nevertheless refused to apologize for examining documents or drawing conclusions from facts, conduct lawmakers described as a dangerous politicization of fact-based conclusions. By the hearing’s end, the constitutional crisis was complete: “I’m president” had been rejected as the nation’s highest and most sacred form of legal immunity.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.