Lynn Smith: Jack is no dull boy

On Aug. 9, 1997, New York City police officers arrested Haitian immigrant Abner Louima outside a dance club in Flatbush, Brooklyn. After a brief scuffle, Louima was transported to the 70th Precinct station house, where he was forced into a bathroom and tortured with a broken stick until both his colon and kidney were ruptured. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn handled the prosecution of four indicted police officers, and Justin Volpe, the leader of the assault, continues to serve a 30-year prison sentence.

At the time, the Louima case was highly publicized because it was both legally and politically significant. White police officers had allegedly committed acts of unimaginable cruelty on a helpless Black man, thereby demonstrating horrific disregard for his civil rights, so the legal pressure to act was enormous. Politically, the case clearly connected race and poverty with police brutality, so local politicians desperately wanted some of the involved officers to be punished. Because no one wanted convictions more than current Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, he demanded that the Louima case be handled by the most qualified, clean-cut and fearless prosecutor that the Brooklyn U.S. attorney could provide.

Ultimately, the person that was chosen to lead the Louima prosecution was Jack Smith, the very same man who was recently appointed to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into former President Donald Trump. And it was in his new role as special counsel that on Jan. 10, Jack Smith again crossed paths with Rudy Giuliani … this time to issue a subpoena relative to the 2020 election.

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1994, Mr. Smith got his start in the Manhattan district attorney’s office under the tutelage of Robert Morgenthau, best known for prosecuting mob bosses. In 1999, when he moved to the United States Attorney’s office in Brooklyn, Jack served in a supervisory capacity with a growing focus on public corruption. In an interview with the Associated Press, he told reporters that he believed his job as a prosecutor mattered because it served people like his parents who, “… paid their taxes, followed the rules, and expected their public officials to do the same.”

In 2008, Smith was asked to supervise war crime prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It was there that he began to hone his skills for litigating corrupt government officials and militia members.

He returned to the U.S. Department of Justice in 2010 to head its Public Integrity Section. It was during this period that Jack Smith suffered two of his worst losses … the campaign finance case against former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), and the bribery case against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Both trials resulted in acquittals and/or hung juries. But at the same time, Mr. Smith was leading the successful prosecution of Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former CIA officer who was convicted of mishandling national security secrets and obstruction of justice.

In 2013, he also won major convictions against Rick Renzi (R-AZ) for extortion, bribery, insurance fraud, money laundering and racketeering. Although Renzi appealed his conviction to the Ninth Circuit Court where they upheld the jury's original 17-count verdict, Renzi received a full pardon from President Donald Trump in January 2021.

During recent years, Mr. Smith has been back in The Hague, this time working as chief prosecutor investigating the ethnic cleansing that occurred between 1998 and 2000 during the war in Kosovo. In November, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith to oversee two ongoing federal investigations around the efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, and the theft of classified materials stored at Mar-a-Lago. In this role, Smith is responsible for determining whether or not the former president should face any indictments at all. Smith has learned that when the facts don't warrant a prosecution, you can’t proceed with a case, and he’s demonstrated that by closing long-running investigations into former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), Rep. Don Young (R-AK), and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA), without ever filing charges.

Ultimately, if the Justice Department does indict Trump, the ramifications will be ugly regardless of what the evidence shows. Trump’s most ardent supporters will be certain that the DOJ is acting politically, and if charges aren’t brought, Trump’s harshest critics will claim that the DOJ is guilty of cowardice. But neither will trouble Jack Smith because he’s already confronted war criminals, mobsters, and corrupt police. Now in his mid-50s, he will bring the experience, temperament and demeanor required to handle the fierce partisan rancor that is sure to follow any path he pursues.

And we can be sure that like Jack, 2023 will not be dull.

— Community Columnist Lynn Smith is a retired wealth management executive who resides in Holland. Contact her at lynn.angleworks@gmail.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Lynn Smith: Jack is no dull boy