National Review’s editors believe special counsel Jack Smith has made a grave error in alleging that the conduct of Donald Trump and his co-conspirators in the run-up to the January 6 riots amounts to criminal misconduct. The editors write that Smith himself is attempting to criminalize protected free expression and subvert the rule of law. I beg to differ.
Our editorial does not gloss over our shared aversion to Trump’s “appalling actions” in the wake of his 2020 loss. But it maintains that Trump’s misconduct was a political crime for which he was prosecuted in a political venue and, ultimately, acquitted. Dissatisfied with that outcome, it argues, the Biden administration empowered the special counsel for the “precise purpose” of attempting a “do-over for a failed impeachment.” The editorial implies that those who entertain the validity of Smith’s charges have succumbed to a fit of pique, and would do well to remember that “criminal prosecution is an inapt substitute for the congressionally driven political process.” But Trump’s second impeachment proceedings and what the former president is charged with here are distinct.
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