Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday to investigate why special counsel Jack Smith is hellbent on trying President Donald Trump ahead of November.
Gaetz requested DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz look into why Smith tried to leapfrog the judicial system to put Trump on trial so expeditiously.
“The witch hunt against President Trump by Attorney General Garland and Special Counsel Smith is a partisan exercise, and the American people know it,” Gaetz said in a statement. “The actions of the Special Counsel Smith to speed up the trial against President Trump violate the DOJ’s rules and the law. His public comments and his office’s briefs before the Supreme Court demonstrate that he has no reason for his actions other than to unlawfully interfere in the 2024 presidential election.”
Smith frantically begged the Supreme Court in December to expedite the case regarding whether Trump can claim presidential immunity, arguing that there was “public importance” to the case. Smith, working on behalf of the Biden Justice Department, didn’t mention the obvious “public importance” to the Biden administration of dragging its opponent into court before Election Day.
In his filing, Smith said the question of presidential immunity must “be resolved as expeditiously as possible — and, if respondent is not immune, [he must] receive a fair and speedy trial on these charges. The public, respondent, and the government are entitled to nothing less.”
The right to a speedy trial is the right of the defendant, not the prosecutor or the public, according to the Sixth Amendment.
Trump’s team shot back that the question must be “resolved in a cautious, deliberative manner — not at breakneck speed.”
Gaetz argued Smith is hellbent on ramming the case through the courts so that he can interfere in the election, a violation of section 9-85.500 of the DOJ’s manual which requires Smith and other prosecutors “never select the timing of …criminal charges…for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
Gaetz noted, as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in her concurrence with Monday’s unanimous ruling smacking down Colorado’s attempt to knock Trump off the ballot, that the country is already in a “volatile season of a Presidential election.”
“It is indisputable that we are already in an election season. However, the Justice Manual does not set hard dates,” Gaetz wrote. “It is the core of prohibited conduct that a purpose (not the purpose) of any official action of a prosecutor be to affect any election: it may be morally correct that the American people should see swift resolution of this case, perhaps with dropped charges or a Trump acquittal before the November 2024 Presidential election, but wielding Executive Branch authority in the service of this is a violation of law.”
Trump’s legal team made a similar claim, saying Smith “identifies no compelling reason” to rush the appeal to the high court and that his haste gives the “appearance of partisan motivation.”
