President Trump is set to make an appearance in Washington D.C. Thursday afternoon as he is arraigned on new charges announced earlier this week by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
BREAKING: J6 Grand Jury Delivers Indictment https://t.co/UNLGPJ5DuY
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 1, 2023
But while Attorney General Merrick Garland claims Smith has been conducting a fair and impartial investigation, his connection to protecting former IRS official Lois Lerner paints a different picture.
Smith worked with Lerner to target conservative tea party groups back in 2010. In fact, then Attorney General Eric Holder was asked to make Smith available for testimony in front of the House Oversight Committee about his role in weaponizing the powerful agency. After the scandal broke, Lerner eventually retired in disgrace (with a nice bonus from taxpayers and without consequences).
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, today requested that the Department of Justice make DOJ Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith available for a transcribed interview. The request comes after Smith’s subordinate, Director of DOJ’s Election Crimes Branch, Richard Pilger, told Committee investigators in a transcribed interview that the Justice Department met with Lois Lerner in October 2010, two and a half years earlier than previously known, to discuss potential criminal enforcement relating to political speech of nonprofit groups in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.
“The Committee’s transcribed interview of Richard Pilger presents further troubling information about the Department’s contemplated prosecution of nonprofit groups for false statements,” Chairman Issa and Chairman Jordan state in the letter. “It is apparent that the Department’s leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, was closely involved in engaging with the IRS in wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived problems with the decision.”
“According to Mr. Pilger,” the letter continues, “the Justice Department convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in the criminal enforcement of campaign-finance laws against politically active nonprofits. This meeting was arranged at the direction of Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith.”
The meeting occurred days before Lois Lerner spoke at a Duke University event about the immense political pressure on the IRS to “fix the problem” created by Citizens United before the 2010 midterm election.
Smith also has a lengthy record of improperly targeting Republicans and a reputation of being a "political hitman."
Mike Davis: Jack Smith is a political hitman sent in to take out Republican presidential candidates like he did with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell back before 2016. pic.twitter.com/AcuEDnCH50
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 3, 2023
Jack Smith’s prosecution of Gov Bob McDonnell was UNANIMOUSLY overturned by SCOTUS, ruling that Smith overcharged. He also helped Lois Lerner’s IRS targeting of conservatives, when he led DOJ’s public integrity unit. Now he claims to know what’s in Trump’s mind.
— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) August 2, 2023
Quite a record. pic.twitter.com/xfMgJ5Hepq
Meanwhile, the federal judge tapped to oversee Trump's case is a Democratic activist.
💰 Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over the federal "election interference" case against Trump, is a NINE-time Obama donor who pumped thousands of dollars into Barack Obama's presidential campaign coffers, FEC finance records reveal.https://t.co/FhtwUNDJIU
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) August 2, 2023