Rep. Elise Stefanik files complaint against Jack Smith over Trump investigations

“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 Tuesday morning in a post on X.

Stefanik included a copy the ethics complaint filed Tuesday with the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility against “Biden special counsel Jack Smith.”

“At every turn, [Smith] has sought to accelerate his illegal prosecution of President Trump for the clear (if unstated) purpose of trying him before the November election,” Stefanik added.

“The Justice Department’s own policies clearly prohibit Smith from doing so,” she said. “And as a DOJ employee, he is bound by those policies.”

In the complaint, Stefanik said Smith has made “multiple attempts to rush to trial the federal Jan. 6th case against President Trump” in violation of DOJ policies and repeatedly violated a stay on proceedings by continuing the discovery process in the case.

“President Trump is now the presumptive Republican nominee for president,” Stefanik said. “Biden special counsel Jack Smith is attempting to expedite the trial in order to influence the general election in November.”

She said federal prosecutors can’t select the timing of any legal action to create an advantage or a disadvantage for any candidate or political party, but Smith, she said, petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by requesting a Jan. 2 trial date.

She said Smith’s legal team produced 13 million pages of discovery and 3,000 hours of camera footage, which Trump’s legal team must review.

Stefanik said Smith also violated DOJ rules against choosing trial dates by petitioning the Supreme Court to bypass the federal appellate process to expedite the trial, but the court on Dec. 22 denied his request.

“That Jack Smith was solely motivated by the desire to interfere in the November election was effectively proven two months later” when Smith opposed Trump’s request to bypass the federal appellate court process to determine whether presidential criminal immunity applies in the case against him, according to Stefanik.

Smith argued the nation has a “compelling interest” in promptly resolving the case, which Stefanik questions in her ethics complaint against him.

“Aside from the upcoming election, what ‘compelling interest’ does the public have in the prompt resolution of this case?” she asks. “Why should this interest — based on an unstated reason — override the due process rights of a criminal defendant?”

Stefanik in a separate statement Tuesday also cited Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case against Trump for allegedly committing fraud when paying former adult film actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement in the run-up to the 2016 general election.

“It is crystal clear from the opening arguments and evidence that this extraordinarily weak case is blatant lawfare and election interference during the height of the presidential campaign,” Stefanik said.

“Bragg brought bogus felony charges against President Trump for the non-felony of booking a 2017 nuisance claim as a ‘legal expense,'” she said. “This theory is so baseless that it was previously passed over by the prior Manhattan DA, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney, the Federal Election Commission and Bragg himself.”

Without offering proof, Stefanik said the “top political appointee in the Biden Justice Department” was sent to Bragg’s office to target Trump and place the case before New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who donated to Biden’s campaign and whose daughter is “raising tens of millions off this unprecedented case.”

“This is corrupt election interference to its core,” Stefanik said.

The DOJ declined to comment on the matter.