President Trump is scheduled to appear in Washington on Thursday afternoon to face the novel charges announced earlier this week by special counsel Jack Smith.
BREAKING: J6 Grand Jury Returns Indictment https://t.co/UNLGPJ5DuY
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 1, 2023
While Attorney General Merrick Garland says Smith conducted a fair and impartial investigation, his ties to the protection of former IRS official Lois Lerner paint a different picture.
Smith worked with Lerner to target conservative tea party groups in 2010. In fact, then-Attorney General Eric Holder was asked to make Smith available to testify before the House Oversight Committee about his role in weaponizing the powerful agency. After the scandal broke, Lerner ultimately retired in disgrace (with a nice bonus from taxpayers and no consequences).
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, D-Calif., and Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Jim Jordan, R-OhioToday, he asked the Department of Justice to provide the head of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, Jack Smith, to obtain a transcript of the interview. The request was filed after Smith’s subordinate, Justice Department Director of Election Crimes Division Richard Pilger, told committee investigators in an interview transcript that the Justice Department met with Lois Lerner in October 2010, two and a half years earlier than previously. known to discuss potential crimes enforcing laws on political speech by nonprofit groups following the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision.
“The transcript of the Committee’s interview with Richard Pilger presents further disturbing information about the Department’s consideration of prosecuting nonprofit groups for false statements,” Chairman Issa and Chairman Jordan state in their letter. “It is clear that Department leadership, including Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith, has been closely engaged with the IRS in the wake of Citizens United and political pressure from prominent Democrats to address perceived issues with the decision“
“According to Mr. Pilger,” the letter continues, “the Department of Justice convened a meeting with former IRS official Lois Lerner in October 2010 to discuss how the IRS could assist in criminal enforcement of campaign finance laws against politically active nonprofits -profit. This meeting was organized under the direction of Public Integrity Section Chief Jack Smith.
The meeting came just days before Lois Lerner spoke at an event at Duke University about the enormous political pressure on the IRS to “solve the problem” created by Citizens United ahead of the 2010 midterm elections.
Smith also has a long history of inappropriately attacking Republicans and a reputation as a “political assassin.”
Mike Davis: Jack Smith is a political assassin sent to eliminate Republican presidential candidates, just as he did with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell before 2016. pic.twitter.com/AcuEDnCH50
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) August 3, 2023
Jack Smith’s impeachment against Governor Bob McDonnell was UNANIMOUSLY overturned by SCOTUS, ruling that Smith overcharged him. He also assisted Lois Lerner in the IRS’s targeting of conservatives when he headed the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Unit. Now he claims he knows what Trump thinks.
Quite a record. pic.twitter.com/xfMgJ5Hepq— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) August 2, 2023
Meanwhile, the federal judge appointed to oversee the Trump case is a Democratic activist.
💰 Obama appointee 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 financial records show.https://t.co/FhtwUNDJIU
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) August 2, 2023
