Special Counsel Jack Smith, the one who has brought the documents case against former President Donald Trump in federal court, was hit on Tuesday, April 30, with an ethics compliant filed by Rep. and House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik. In the complaint, Rep. Stefanik alleges that Special Counsel Smith is attempting to use his legal power to tip the 2024 election against former President Donald Trump.
In the complaint, which was sent to the Office of Professional Responsibility at the Department of Justice, Rep. Stefanik argued that special counsel Smith should be investigated over her allegation that he is utilizing the federal government’s resources to interfere in the 2024 election against former President Trump.
Specifically, Rep. Stefanik alleged in the letter that Special Counsel Smith is “abusing the resources of the federal government to unlawfully interfere with the 2024 presidential election.” Continuing, she wrote that Special Counsel Smith’s push to “rush” the trial were in violation of DOJ policy. In her words, “Jack Smith’s multiple attempts to rush to trial the federal January 6th case against President Trump violated long-standing, explicit Justice Department policy.”
Continuing, she added that he should “face discipline” for bringing “disrepute” to the DOJ and federal government generally. In her words, “Further, Jack Smith’s repeated violations of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s stay of proceedings are a lawless breach of trial ethics and lawyerly conduct. Jack Smith’s actions brought disrepute to the Justice Department and the federal government as a whole, and he should face discipline appropriately.”
Explaining her allegation that Special Counsel Smith is attempting to influence the election by rushing the trial, Rep. Stefanik said, “There exist approximately thirteen million pages of discovery for President Trump to review, plus thousands of hours of camera footage. Prosecutors bringing a case of this complexity — with so many consequential and novel legal issues to sort out — would normally never seek to bring it to trial within five months.” She added, “The only reason to push for such an early trial date was to work to get the case tried before the November election, and the Justice Department Manual clearly forbids Jack Smith from taking any action on that basis.”
Rep. Stefanik also spoke about DA Bragg’s prosecution of former President Trump in a press conference. In that press conference, she said, “Also in New York, we are now in week three of Alvin Bragg’s witch hunt, the first criminal trial of a former President of the United States. It is crystal clear from the opening arguments and evidence that this extraordinarily weak case is blatant lawfare and election interference during the height of the presidential campaign.”
She continued, “While the violent crime crisis rages in New York, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg brought bogus felony charges against President Trump for the non-felony of booking a 2017 nuisance claim as a “legal expense.” Under this bogus legal theory, this somehow impacted the election. This theory is so baseless that it was previously passed over by the prior Manhattan DA, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney, the Federal Election Commission, and Alvin Bragg himself. But a top political appointee in the Biden Justice Department was deployed to Bragg’s office to go after Joe Biden’s top political opponent and the Republican nominee: Donald J. Trump. And the case is in front of the Democrat Judge Juan Merchan who donated to Biden’s campaign. And whose daughter is raising tens of millions off this unprecedented case.”
She added, “This is corrupt election interference to its core. Even a former Clinton federal judge said Judge Merchan must recuse. What was Merchan’s response? He retaliated against President Trump with an unconstitutional gag order. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee, under the leadership of Chairman Jim Jordan, released a scathing report highlighting Bragg’s political investigation and prosecution of President Trump, calling it a direct threat to our republic. Democrats’ corrupt and desperate witch hunts against President Trump must come to an end. This is lawfare and blatant election interference, and the American people know it.”
Then, explaining her ethics complaint about Jack Smith in that press conference, she said, “That is why today I filed an official complaint with the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility on Joe Biden’s special counsel Jack Smith for his clear and illegal efforts of election interference. We will fight the Democrats’ unjust lawfare and expose this corruption. Whether it is in New York, Atlanta, or here in Washington, D.C., this is an important responsibility of our oversight.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: By United States Department of Justice – This file has been extracted from another file, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132849708
"*" indicates required fields