Special counsel Jack Smith’s legal team has issued its first response to ethics complaints filed against him by allies of President Donald Trump. The filing challenges claims that Smith violated the law in pursuing criminal charges against Trump.
The complaints stem from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who persuaded the Office of Special Counsel to review Smith’s conduct. The office has no affiliation with Smith’s role during Joe Biden’s administration. Cotton argued that Smith rushed to bring Trump to trial with the goal of affecting the 2024 election.
Smith’s attorneys, Lanny Breuer and Peter Koski, along with Smith himself, responded in a three-page letter to acting special counsel Jamieson Greer. According to reporting by The New York Times, the letter firmly rejected the accusations.
“The predicate for this investigation is imaginary and unfounded,” the attorneys wrote. “Mr. Smith followed well-established legal principles in conducting the investigations into President Trump, and the courts presiding over the resulting prosecutions have already rejected the spurious allegations that the manner in which Mr. Smith prosecuted these cases was somehow improper.”
Cotton has insisted that Smith, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and later resigned after Trump’s election, acted without justification other than an intent to interfere with the political process.
“This investigation is premised on a partisan complaint that suggests the ordinary operation of the criminal justice system should be disrupted by the whims of a political contest,” Smith’s lawyers countered. “But the notion that justice should yield to politics is antithetical to the rule of law.”
The attorneys also noted that Greer’s office publicly confirmed the existence of the ethics inquiry but has not contacted Smith or his team directly. They urged Greer not to issue any findings without first engaging with them.
“[We] welcome the opportunity to engage with your office and are confident that as you become familiar with the facts and the record, you will conclude that there is no basis to find a violation of the Hatch Act and that these allegations are wholly without merit,” the letter stated.
Ethics experts have also questioned the rationale behind the review. Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer, told the Times that the complaint lacks substance. “I just don’t see how this comes anywhere close to a Hatch Act violation,” Painter said.
“If Smith had made public statements shortly before the election about the filings, we would have an issue that would need to be addressed. Or if he’d written Congress, it would need to be addressed. I see no evidence that Jack Smith did anything of the kind. He simply filed pleadings with the court, and the pleadings were accepted by the courts.”