New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 Republican in the House, just dropped a bombshell on President Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
On Tuesday, Stefanik lodged an ethics complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility against special counsel Jack Smith. She accused him of attempting to “unlawfully interfere with the 2024 presidential election” by hastening the trial proceedings against former President Donald Trump in relation to the events of January 6, 2021, at the Capitol, Newsmax reported.
“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,” the New York Republican said in a statement announcing the complaint. “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.”
Stefanik additionally contended that Smith’s efforts to pursue legal actions against Trump constitute a violation of a section of the DOJ’s manual, which stipulates that attorneys must “never select the timing of any action… for the purpose of affecting any election.”
“Smith’s conduct has brought disrepute to the Department of Justice and the entire federal government, and the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility should impose the discipline that such conduct warrants,” she 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.”
Stefanik alleged that Smith violated company policies by requesting a January 2, 2024 trial date in August 2023. “There exist approximately thirteen million pages of discovery for President Trump to review, plus thousands of hours of camera footage,” she said.
“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. The only reason to push for such an early trial date was to work to get the case tried before the November election,” she added.
Stefanik also noted that Smith breached the DOJ provision in December by urging the Supreme Court to expedite Trump’s immunity arguments—a request that the court rejected. However, two months later, when Trump petitioned on the matter of presidential immunity, Smith took the opposing stance, asserting that the nation had a “‘compelling interest’ in the ‘prompt resolution of this case,'” as outlined by Stefanik.
“Aside from the upcoming election, what ‘compelling interest’ does the public have in the prompt resolution of this case,” she argued in her letter to the DOJ’s ethics office. “Why should this interest — based on an unstated reason — override the due process rights of a criminal defendant?”
Disclaimer: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.