With barely over a month before one of the most consequential U.S. presidential elections in modern times, Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped a 165-page motion against Donald Trump that was unsealed Wednesday. (The motion was regarding his D.C. criminal case against the former president, which had to be adjusted to take into account this summer’s Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling).

Timing is everything: BREAKING: Judge Chutkan Unseals Jack Smith's Immunity Motion in DC Election Case Against Donald Trump

When a justice department controlled by one party goes after the leading candidate in the rival party just as people are starting to vote, one can’t help but think of the phrases “election interference” and “banana republic.”

CNN Senior legal analyst Elie Honig was appalled by the move, calling it a “cheap shot” in a New York magazine editorial Thursday, adding that Smith and the DOJ will “bend any rule” and abandon any pretense of actual justice in their crazed obsession with "getting" Trump. Honig:

Jack Smith has failed in his quest to try Donald Trump before the 2024 election. So instead, the special counsel has bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls.

Smith has now dropped a 165-page doorstop of a filing in federal court, on the issue of Trump’s immunity from prosecution. Judge Tanya Chutkan — who suddenly claims not to care about the impending election despite her earlier efforts to expedite the case to get it in before the very same election… duly complied with Smith’s wishes…

The special counsel had information he wanted to make public. But he bent important rules to do so, writes legal columnist Elie Honig. https://t.co/IfHoBPV1Me

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) October 3, 2024

Honig was just getting started, and went on to blister the corrupt DOJ:

The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects. At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. “But we need to know this stuff before we vote!” is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.)

Utterly damning column by Elie Honig in New York Magainze. https://t.co/2BgAbojFZ6 pic.twitter.com/7A40fmBw4I

— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) October 4, 2024

Honig continued, going point by point through the obvious problems with Smith’s indictment, and it’s worth a read. But his takeaway is summed up perfectly in his headline:

Jack Smith’s October Cheap Shot

That's what it is, folks, a cheap shot—but a very dangerous one, the kind that leads down the road to authoritarianism.

We have seen so many norms and hallowed traditions thrown into the woodchipper by the Biden-Harris regime and the Democrat/media complex that it’s hard to be shocked anymore. They’ve threatened the Electoral College, the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court; they’ve used the Department of Justice as a cudgel to enforce their will, they've flung open the border to anyone who might want to enter, and they tried to forgive billions in student debt with a wave of the executive pen.  

This latest slimy move by Smith is yet another transparent display of how they’ll do anything to hold onto power—regardless of how badly it damages our country.

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