A U.S. congresswoman filed an ethics complaint against the special prosecutor in a criminal case against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee for the same position.
Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY-21) said in a statement on X that special counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting Trump for allegedly keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, is interfering with the 2024 election process by attempting to speed up Trump’s criminal trial.
“It’s obvious to any reasonable observer that Jack Smith is trying to interfere with the 2024 election and stop the American people from electing Donald Trump,” Stefanik said. “At every turn, he has sought to accelerate his illegal prosecution of President Trump for the clear (if unstated) purpose of trying him before the November election. The Justice Department’s own policies clearly prohibit Smith from doing so, and as a DOJ employee he is bound by those policies.”
She later specifically listed the policies she said Smith is violating.
“Section 9-85.500 dictates that ‘[f]ederal prosecutors . . . may never select the timing of any action . . . for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party,'” according to Stefanik.
She also accused Smith of burying Trump’s legal team in 13 million legal documents and thousands of hours of camera footage, which she said would be impossible to review before an expedited trial.
“Prosecutors bringing a case of this complexity–with so many consequential and novel legal issues to sort out–would normally never seek to bring it to trial within five months,” Stefanik said. “The only reason to push for such an early trial date was to work to get the case tried before the November election, and the Justice Department Manual clearly forbids Jack Smith from taking any action on that basis.”
Stefanik also said Smith is in violation of the DOJ’s code of ethics because he “repeatedly flouted” the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s stay of the proceedings in Trump’s trial.
“When President Trump appealed the District Court’s interlocutory order denying his motion to dismiss the case on presidential immunity grounds, the District Court issued a stay of proceedings as required by unambiguous Supreme Court precedent,” her letter says. “Thus, the District Court rightly stayed ‘any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.'”
But, Stefanik said, Smith continued to submit paperwork to the court, to which Trump’s attorneys were forced to respond, which she said violated D.C. Rule of Professional Conduct 3.4(c) that “prohibits counsel from ‘[k]nowingly disobey[ing] an obligation under the rules of a tribunal.'”
Trump has often slammed the criminal trials he is facing as election interference.
“What Crooked Joe Biden is doing with all of these ridiculous D.C. inspired lawsuits against me is, and make no mistake about it, ELECTION INTERFERENCE!!! Drop the lawsuits, Joe, and maybe you’ll do better than you are doing now!!!” he said on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump has claimed presidential immunity in the case.
“WITHOUT PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR A PRESIDENT TO PROPERLY FUNCTION, PUTTING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN GREAT AND EVERLASTING DANGER!” he said.
“IF THEY TAKE AWAY MY PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY, THEY TAKE AWAY CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY.” he recently said.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter/X.
