The president long pledged “retribution” against his enemies for prosecuting him. Now it’s happening
President Donald Trump’s administration is investigating former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led two criminal investigations into Trump during the Biden administration, on the supposed basis that Smith’s actions may have been politically motivated.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel is reportedly investigating Smith over a possible violation of the Hatch Act, a law that aims to make sure that federal workers are nonpartisan and avoid political activities. Smith investigated Trump over alleged his mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, including his role in fomenting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The news was first reported by The New York Post on Friday night and confirmed to NBC News on Saturday.
Smith’s federal prosecution of Trump for election subversion was delayed by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court as it weighed — and then largely granted — the then-former president’s sweeping claims to immunity from prosecution for acts he committed in office.
Smith dropped the Department of Justice’s investigations into Trump in November and resigned from his position in January, shortly before Trump took office. Around that time, Joe Biden’s Justice Department released Smith’s report on his investigation into Trump’s election interference.
“As set forth in the original and superseding indictments, when it became clear that Mr. Trump had lost the election and that lawful means of challenging the election results had failed, he resorted to a series of criminal efforts to retain power,” the report read.
Trump has been plotting his revenge against Smith and his team for years, looking for ways to punish them and undo their investigations. He never hid it: “The precedent on doing what they did, with the weaponization, using the DOJ and the FBI to go after their political opponents, that is so bad,” Trump said last year. “That means I can do it too.”
Following Trump’s win, members of Smith’s team quickly moved to retain lawyers in case Trump followed through on his public pledge of “retribution.”
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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a Trump ally who called for an investigation into Smith earlier this week, celebrated news of the investigation.“I appreciate the Office of Special Counsel taking this seriously and launching an investigation into Jack Smith’s conduct. No one is above the law. Jack Smith’s actions were clearly driven to hurt President Trump’s election, and Smith should be held fully accountable,” Cotton told The Post.
In February, the Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, formed the Weaponization Working Group, and decreed that it investigate, among other things, “weaponization by Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff, who spent more than $50 million targeting President Trump,” as well as the officials involved in the 2022 FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago related to classified documents that Trump had reportedly taken from the White House.
Hatch Act penalties include debarment from federal employment for up to five years and a civil penalty of up to $1,000.
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Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel is 28-year-old Paul Ingrassia, a political commentator who was admitted to the bar in 2024. Ingrassia has apparently associated with both white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, who has been charged with rape and sex trafficking in multiple countries. In November 2024, Ingrassia said Smith should be jailed — along with every other “communist who’s waged relentless lawfare against Trump.”
“President Trump wants to appoint Mr. Ingrassia because he knows that this nominee will treat treasonous, secessionist rhetoric as acceptable political discourse; reward extremism instead of condemning it; and work to tear down, not build up, the democratic institutions we have sworn to protect,” top Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform and Judiciary committees wrote in June.
