Can Jack Smith save Trump’s election interference case?

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Trump has called Smith a “scoundrel” and “deranged,” pledged to fire him “within two seconds” of his first day in office, and said he should be “thrown out of the country.” He has pledged to pardon the hundreds of people charged in connection with the Capitol attack, and he will almost certainly direct his attorney general to dissolve the two federal criminal cases against him, creating yet another “crisis for democracy,” says Noah Bookbinder, a former federal prosecutor in the Justice Department’s public integrity section who now serves as director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “Those are hard decisions that he needs to make.” Within the hour that Smith’s office filed its notice to the court, House Republicans who have baselessly accused the special counsel of leading a politically motivated case against Trump have signaled their intent to launch an investigation of their own. open image in gallery Special counsel Jack Smith, right, is planning his next steps in a sprawling election interference case against Trump Smith’s case isn’t likely to be put on ice, either, unless Judge Tanya Chutkan takes the extraordinary measure of appointing another lawyer to argue against dismissing the case “if there’s a sense that the prosecutors are making a decision for reasons that may not be improper,” according to Bookbinder. “But that’s certainly another really important step that Jack Smith’s office could take to at least ensure that the public knows what they found, even if there is no direct accountability.” open image in gallery Jack Smith announced a first grand jury indictment against Trump in August 2023 on charges of obstruction and conspiracy in connection with the 2020 election So far, the largest account of the government’s findings is in a 165-page document that details the state-by-state efforts by Trump, his unindicted co-conspirators and allies to pressure state officials, election workers and others to validate his scheme to reverse the loss, and then organize fraudulent election certificates that falsely stated he won.