'Supporting law enforcement should not be political' Jack Smith criticizes Trump's Jan.6 pardons

Supporting U.S. Law Enforcement "should not be a political issue. It should not be a Republican, Democrat, red-blue thing,"  the special counsel who brought charges against President Donald Trump after his first term said on Thursday, referring to Trump's sweeping Jan. 6 pardons.  Attorney and former special counsel Jack Smith told MS Now that the pardons come with a cost, and in this case it is recidivism, as he expressed concerns over the integrity of the upcoming midterm elections. 

The former special counsel said the pardons that Trump granted for those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol will have deeper implications given how the administration is functioning. "There's the obvious cost of recidivism. These are people who committed their crimes in the name and in the interest of Donald Trump, and he's returned the favor by pardoning them," Smith said. "That sends one message to them; a message I'm equally concerned about is the message that it sends to law enforcement," he added. Smith said the move was simply wrong and that supporting law enforcement should not be a political issue. "It should not be a Republican, Democrat, red blue thing."

In the exclusive interview, Smith also claimed that the U.S. is facing an "attack on the rule of law" that he has never witnessed in his lifetime. He claimed that the judges can't trust the Justice Department as it's been reconstituted under the current administration, and that, along with the pardons, concerns him about the integrity of the upcoming midterm elections. "The people who perpetrated Jan. 6 have probably learned from how they did that," he said.  The comparison of the pardoned Jan. 6 rioters and the former Olympic Canoeist, David Hearn, who was indicted for allegedly vandalizing the Washington Reflecting Pool, was brought to the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, who apparently laughed it off. 

Thus, Smith claimed the Department of Justice is no longer effective at doing its job, and it will impact the nation's security as well. "They've jettisoned expertise. We have a situation where we've got rid of people who know how to protect our national security," he said. He added that people within the Justice Department are being "victimized" and "demonized" for doing their jobs right. "We've seen so many times in these retribution cases where prosecutors wouldn't be a part of it," Smith said. "Prosecutors in Minnesota were like, I'm not going to investigate the family member of a shooting victim. I'm not doing that," he added in reference to shootings earlier this year by members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while carrying out the administration's immigration crackdown.

Smith charged Trump in 2023 with undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election to stay in power, and with mishandling classified materials after leaving the White House in 2021. While Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases, they were eventually dropped after his reelection due to the Justice Department's policy barring the prosecution of a sitting president. Before that, a federal judge also dismissed the release of the classified documents attributed to the case on the grounds that Smith's appointment was unconstitutional, as per ABC News.