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Jack Smith Hit With Ethics Complaint For Trying To ‘Interfere’ With 2024 Election

Jack Smith Hit With Ethics Complaint For Trying To ‘Interfere’ With 2024 Election

REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Katelynn Richardson
April 30, 2024 10:47 AM ET

Special counsel Jack Smith was hit with an ethics complaint Tuesday for allegedly seeking to “unlawfully interfere in the 2024 presidential election.”

Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik filed the complaint with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Professional Responsibility, arguing Smith violated DOJ policy by seeking to expedite Trump’s trial to “influence the general election” and violated the district court’s stay on proceedings when he continued to file new material. Smith is prosecuting the classified documents and Jan. 6 cases against former President Donald Trump.

“I write today to request an ethics investigation of Biden Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith for abusing the resources of the federal government to unlawfully interfere with the 2024 presidential election,” Stefanik wrote in the letter. “Jack Smith’s multiple attempts to rush to trial the federal January 6th case against President Trump violated long-standing, explicit Justice Department policy.”

“Further, Jack Smith’s repeated violations of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia’s stay of proceedings are a lawless breach of trial ethics and lawyerly conduct,” Stefanik continued.

Smith asked the Supreme Court in December to consider Trump’s bid to dismiss his Jan. 6 case based on presidential immunity before allowing a lower court to weigh in. Trump’s attorneys slammed the request, which the justices ultimately rejected, as reflecting Smith’s “evident desire to schedule President Trump’s potential trial during the summer of 2024— at the height of the election season.”

The Supreme Court considered Trump’s presidential immunity argument last week after the D.C. Circuit rejected his claims. Trump’s case is on hold at the district court until the Supreme Court issues a ruling.

Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled in January that her stay order did not “unambiguously forbid” the government from filing documents on suspended deadlines.
“The basic function of a deadline is not to authorize a filing, but to time-limit it; correspondingly, the lifting of a deadline removes that time limit but does not necessarily bar the filing,” she wrote.

The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

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