Ex-special counsel Jack Smith accused of ‘corrupt’ probe of Trump

Jack Smith finally had to sit in a chair and answer for it, and the picture that emerged wasn't pretty. For two years, he spent tens of millions of dollars chasing a former president while the country’s real problems piled up. Now, under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the former special counsel couldn’t explain why he refused to follow his own department’s rules — like the one that says you don’t indict a major political candidate weeks before an election. That wasn’t a legal judgment. That was a political hit job, and the senators who pressed him Tuesday made sure the American people saw it.

The Republicans on the committee did what they should have done long ago. They brought receipts. They pointed to Smith’s cozy relationship with Democratic prosecutors, his use of an obscure 19th-century statute to charge Trump, and his office’s willingness to subpoena Republican lawmakers and their staff — including Senator Rick Scott. This wasn’t a good-faith investigation. It was a weaponized bureaucracy targeting the president’s political opponents. Smith’s testimony confirmed what most of us already suspected: the fix was in from the start, and the only question was whether anyone would ever hold him accountable.

What’s striking is how little the media wants to revisit this. The same outlets that cheered Smith’s indictment as a triumph of the rule of law are suddenly quiet now that his case collapsed and the judge tossed it. The rule of law cuts both ways, and when a prosecutor breaks the rules to go after the leading candidate for president, that’s corruption — plain and simple. The Judiciary Committee’s hearing wasn’t just about settling scores. It was about making sure this kind of abuse doesn’t become a permanent feature of American politics. If the next special counsel thinks twice before weaponizing the Justice Department, Tuesday’s testimony did its job.