Live updates: Jack Smith faces Senate scrutiny; Trump to unveil

Jack Smith is back on the Hill Tuesday, and this time the senators asking questions ought to remember they’re not watching a prosecutor. They’re watching a man who spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars trying to put Donald Trump in prison. This is his second appearance before Congress, and the first one didn't exactly clear the air. So maybe now we can talk about how he actually ran that office.

Smith charged the president over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago while the same Justice Department gave Hillary Clinton a pass for a private server. He pursued an obstruction case that fell apart the moment a federal judge started looking at the details. The other Washington case was thrown out on immunity grounds, which was a polite way of saying Smith never had a legal leg to stand on. The man has nothing to show for it but a lot of burned time and reputation. That's not a prosecutor's record. That's a political operation with a subpoena power.

The GOP senators on the Judiciary Committee should press him on the basics. Who approved the search warrant? Why did his team leak grand jury information? And what exactly did he tell the judge about why he waited so long? These are fair questions, and Smith owes real answers, not the tight-lipped "I stand by my work" routine. He wanted the spotlight. Let him stand in it.

Nobody is saying a former special counsel shouldn't face scrutiny. That's the point. He spent four years scrutinizing the sitting president of the other party. Now it's his turn. If America First means anything, it means the law applies to the people who wield it, too. Tuesday is a good day to remind Jack Smith of that.