Jack Smith’s Political Gambit Targets Trump

◼ With early voting already under way less than five weeks to Election Day, special counsel Jack Smith filed a book-length proffer of his 2020 election-interference case against Donald Trump, which Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered to be publicly released. It is a political gambit. There are extensive pretrial motions left to slog through, so there is no possibility the case could be tried before November—after which, if he wins, Trump will fire Smith and direct the DOJ to dismiss it. There was no legal need, therefore, to publicly air the evidence now, absent the due-process protections of a trial (e.g., the presumption of innocence, instructions that allegations are not evidence, cross-examination, and the presentation of a defense). Yet Smith and Chutkan had a pretext: The Supreme Court’s immunity decision directed Chutkan to decide which acts alleged by Smith to be crimes were official presidential acts subject to immunity claims and which were private acts subject to prosecution. Hence, she directed Smith to outline his case, then overruled defense motions to delay or seal the submission. The judge and prosecutor will not get to have the trial and conviction they ardently hoped to button up before the election. But the Kamala Harris campaign will get a prosecutor’s thoroughgoing version of Trump’s appalling conduct leading up to January 6—which is one of her major campaign issues.

◼ Some 40 million Americans tuned in to see a fight between J. D. Vance and Tim Walz, and a debate broke out. For Vance, it could scarcely have gone better. He looked prepared, calm, well informed, and cordial—undoubtedly reassuring Americans who had been told he was an ogre, and an inexperienced ogre at that. He kept the focus on immigration and effectively hammered home reminders that Harris is already part of that problem. Walz, by contrast, looked nervous and unprepared to discuss foreign policy (asked whether America should support an Israeli strike on Iran, he tried to change the subject to the size of Donald Trump’s rallies) and called himself a “knucklehead” in a meandering admission that he had misrepresented himself as being in Hong Kong during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He also endorsed censorship of “hate speech” in apparent ignorance of the Supreme Court’s unblemished record of rejecting the concept. Turns out that doing lots of adversarial interviews is better debate preparation than hiding from them. The CBS moderators were less intrusive than in the Trump-Harris debate, but by trying to correct Vance (semantically) and then cutting his microphone, they showed why the major-network-moderation model is doomed. The substance of the debate, however, was more depressing. Rather than challenge Walz’s premises on big government, climate change, and abortion, Vance often offered an echo, not a choice. And he continued to defend the indefensible regarding Trump’s challenge to the 2020 election and his own contention that, unlike Mike Pence, he would have pretended the Constitution gave him authority to block Congress’s counting of electors.  It still beat a Trump-Harris debate.

◼ After being ridiculed for not having a policy platform, the Harris campaign released an 82-page document outlining the vice president’s plans for the economy. She has replaced the far-left ideas she espoused when running for president in 2019 with minutely technocratic ones. The Harris view of economics is that the United States is a single-player video game, and the federal government is the player. Every economic problem can be solved with a tax credit, and the Democratic economist Mark Zandi’s model tells the score. In real life, the government is not the only player, and it should not be the most important player. The American people do not passively respond to the government’s moves; they have the potential to innovate and provide for themselves and to interact with one another in productive ways no government can foresee. Neither far-left 2019 Harris nor technocratic 2024 Harris understands that.

◼ They say that once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern. If so, Harris’s three attempts to impose draconian gun-control measures on the citizenry of these United States ought to terrify the voting public. Were she to be elected, the chances of a fourth would be unacceptably high. On the stump, Harris claims that she has no interest in “taking away your guns.” But the evidence shows otherwise. In 2006, as district attorney of San Francisco, Harris broke even with Dianne Feinstein and supported Proposition H: a radical measure that, had it not been swiftly struck down by the courts, would have prohibited residents of that city from buying, selling, or owning handguns of any kind. Two years later, Harris signed an amicus brief in D.C. vs. Heller that argued that the Second Amendment furnishes Americans with no protections whatsoever. And, in 2019, when running for president for the first time, she enthusiastically supported the confiscation of the more than 20 million AR-15s that are already in circulation. Today, Harris insists that for unspecified reasons, she no longer holds these views. Americans who wish to preserve their Second Amendment rights ought not to believe a word of it.

◼ U.S. district judge John Mendez ruled Wednesday that California’s law prohibiting what it called “election-related misinformation” doesn’t pass constitutional muster; the First Amendment protects political parody and satire even when members of the public might be fooled by it. The decision concerned video-maker Christopher Kohls, who goes by the handle “Mr. Reagan” on X. He produces deepfake-style political ads mocking progressives such as Kamala Harris. California’s law was so broad that it barred any deceptive communications likely to hurt a candidate’s reputation or electoral chances. Lawmakers should have known this provision could be interpreted as criminalizing a great deal of political speech that relies on exaggeration and humor. What is really bothering California’s lawmakers is not the access of citizens to the great traditions of political rhetoric—Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were never going to be harassed by such a law. What scares lawmakers is that the means for making effective, professional-looking political propaganda are being democratized. Average citizens as well as media behemoths can now make politicians look goofy with a well-edited video, and social-media companies such as X, which remain outside progressive control, help those clips go viral. As the election approaches, we expect more claims that average citizens are dupes and cat’s-paws of foreign powers, a treacherous excuse for denying them their First Amendment rights.

◼ A pair of headlines sum up Trump’s recent statements about Russia’s war on Ukraine: “Trump says Ukraine is ‘demolished’ and dismisses its defense against Russia’s invasion”; “Trump praises Russia’s military record in argument to stop funding Ukraine’s fight.” In one of his statements, Trump talked about the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him “the greatest salesman on earth,” and not in a positive way. “Every time Zelensky comes to the United States,” said Trump, “he walks away with $100 billion.” (Trump is indulging in hyperbole of course, as that is roughly how much U.S. aid Ukraine has received over the course of the war.) About the war in general, Trump said in late September, “Biden and Kamala allowed this to happen by feeding Zelensky money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.” He then met with Zelensky and said they had a good relationship. If he becomes president again, let’s hope Trump can stay constant in support of Ukraine’s struggle to defend itself and keep its freedom and independence.

◼ Day after day, Russia acts as a terror-state in Ukraine. Putin’s forces attacked a nursing home in Sumy, killing ten, injuring 22 more. They did this in a “double tap”: They struck once; then, when rescue workers arrived, they struck again. Putin’s forces then attacked a grocery market in Kherson, killing six and injuring six more. War crime after war crime, day after day. Though the world at large may get numb to it, Ukrainians cannot. They should be helped by the civilized world to repel this barbarism and save their country.

◼ Pete Rose, a cocky kid from the west side of Cincinnati, sprinted to first after drawing a walk in spring training. “Charlie Hustle,” the pitcher called him, scoffing. The epithet fit, and Rose ran with it. He won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 1963, his first full season with the hometown Reds. A spark plug of the Big Red Machine of the 1970s, he helped lead Cincy to four pennants and two world championships in a seven-year stretch, playing outfield and infield positions and snagging an MVP and two Gold Glove awards. He broke an unwritten rule by barreling into Ray Fosse at home plate in the 1970 All-Star Game, an exhibition, leaving the phenom catcher with a career-limiting shoulder injury. After 27 seasons, including managerial stints, Rose was banned from baseball and its Hall of Fame for breaking the written rule against betting by players and managers on games they’re involved in. He moved to Las Vegas. His record for most career hits, 4,256, is for the ages. Likewise—for all the good, the bad, the ugly, and the amazing—his place in baseball history. Dead at 83. R.I.P.