CNN Legal Analyst: Jack Smith Bent the Rules to Take Shot at Trump

With the election inside the window of the unwritten rule regarding election interference by the DOJ, Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped a 165-page brief outlining the evidence against Donald Trump.

Judge Chutkan took no time at all to release the document, giving Trump his October surprise.

According to CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig, Smith may have bent the rules just to land a blow to Trump’s election hopes.

Bending the Rules

When Smith submitted the briefing, I had predicted that Chutkan would release the information, but I had expected her to wait until about two weeks before the election to do the most damage.

However, it appears that she was trying to beat an appeal by Trump to block the document from going public, hence the rush job.

Chutkan made it clear that she does not care about the election when it comes to this case, so Smith knew he had the judge in his corner on this, and he made the most of it.

Honig offered his perspective on this, stating, "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.”

He continued, "Trump's team objected, and the judge acknowledged that Smith's request to file first was 'procedurally irregular' — moments before she ruled in Smith's favor, as she's done at virtually every consequential turn.”

I have stated many times that I don’t even think Chutkan is concerned with Trump’s guilt or innocence via the evidence because she made it clear during the sentencing of other January 6 defendants that she thought Trump should be in jail.

She never mentioned Trump by name, but during her bench rants, it was clear who she was talking about.

Chutkan and Smith both knew this case was never going to trial before the election, so they did the next best thing… they tried Trump in the court of public opinion.

I guess we will find out on November 5 if it worked or not.