Republican House Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-NY) on Tuesday demanded the Justice Department (DOJ) launch an investigation into “Biden special counsel Jack Smith,” alleging he interfered in the presidential election by prosecuting former President Donald Trump.
Trump faces a maximum of 450 years in federal prison if convicted in the election interference case. A grand jury indicted Trump on 40 charges.Stefanik sent the letter to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, demanding a review of Smith’s handling of the case involving Trump.
“It’s obvious to any reasonable observer that Jack Smith is trying to interfere with the 2024 election and stop the American people from electing Donald Trump,” Stefanik posted in a statement on X.“At every turn, he has sought to accelerate his illegal prosecution of President Trump for the clear (if unstated) purpose of trying him before the November election,” she continued:
The Justice Department’s own policies clearly prohibit Smith from doing so, and as a DOJ employee, he is bound by those policies. Moreover, when the district court imposed a stay on the proceedings, Smith and his office ignored it and continued to file discovery documents. Smith’s conduct has brought disrepute to the Department of Justice and the entire federal government, and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility should impose the discipline that such conduct warrants.In the complaint, Stefanik pointed to a provision in the DOJ Manual that mandates prosecutors “never select the timing of any action … for the purpose of affecting any election or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
She also noted how Smith submitted court filings after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan put proceedings on hold during the immunity appeal. “Jack Smith repeatedly flouted the District Court’s order. First, Jack Smith served nearly 4,000 pages of discovery on President Trump,” Stefanik wrote. “Then, after the Supreme Court rejected his petition for certiorari before judgment, Jack Smith filed a motion in limine in District Court”:
Jack Smith emphatically said that “no one in this country … is above the law.” If that is true, then he should be open to and welcome an ethics investigation into conduct that, on its face, implicates potential violations of DOJ policy and multiple rules of professional conduct. Biden special counsel Jack Smith’s highly unusual and clearly improper attempts to expedite trial and his blatant violation of District Court orders evidence his partisan attempt to influence the results of the 2024 presidential election.
🚨🚨🚨 I just filed an official ethics complaint against Jack Smith with the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility for his illegal election interference.
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) April 30, 2024
It’s obvious to any reasonable observer that Jack Smith is trying to interfere with the 2024 election… pic.twitter.com/lNW4MUz5Oi
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
