The Week: Jack Smith’s Political Gambit Targets Trump

• Now we know why Tim Walz didn’t teach debate.

• With early voting already under way less than five weeks to Election Day, special counsel Jack Smith filed a book-length proffer of his 2020 election-interference case against Donald Trump, which Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered to be publicly released. It is a political gambit. There are extensive pretrial motions left to slog through, so there is no possibility the case could be tried before November—after which, if he wins, Trump will fire Smith and direct the DOJ to dismiss it. There was no legal need, therefore, to publicly air the evidence now, absent the due-process protections of a trial (e.g., the presumption of innocence, instructions that allegations are not evidence, cross-examination, and the presentation of a defense). Yet Smith and Chutkan had a pretext: The Supreme Court’s immunity decision directed Chutkan to decide which acts alleged by Smith to be crimes were official presidential acts subject to immunity claims and which were private acts subject to prosecution. Hence, she directed Smith to outline his case, then overruled defense motions to delay or seal the submission. The judge and prosecutor will not get to have the trial and conviction they ardently hoped to button up before the election. But the Kamala Harris campaign will get a prosecutor’s thoroughgoing version of Trump’s appalling conduct leading up to January 6—which is one of her major campaign issues.

• Now we know why Tim Walz didn’t teach debate.

• With early voting already under way less than five weeks to Election Day, special counsel Jack Smith filed a book-length proffer of his 2020 election-interference case against Donald Trump, which Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered to be publicly released. It is a political gambit. There are extensive pretrial motions left to slog through, so there is no possibility the case could be tried before November—after which, if he wins, Trump will fire Smith and direct the DOJ to dismiss it. There was no legal need, therefore, to publicly air the evidence now, absent the due-process protections of a trial (e.g., the presumption of innocence, instructions that allegations are not evidence, cross-examination, and the presentation of a defense). Yet Smith and Chutkan had a pretext: The Supreme Court’s immunity decision directed Chutkan to decide which acts alleged by Smith to be crimes were official presidential acts subject to immunity claims and which were private acts subject to prosecution. Hence, she directed Smith to outline his case, then overruled defense motions to delay or seal the submission. The judge and prosecutor will not get to have the trial and conviction they ardently hoped to button up before the election. But the Kamala Harris campaign will get a prosecutor’s thoroughgoing version of Trump’s appalling conduct leading up to January 6—which is one of her major campaign issues.