"[Jack] Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects."

"At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. 'But we need to know this stuff before we vote!' is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.)..."

Writes former federal and state prosecutor Elie Honig, in "Jack Smith’s October Cheap Shot" (in New York Magazine).

The way motions work... is that the prosecutor files an indictment; the defense makes motions (to dismiss charges, to suppress evidence, or what have you); and then the prosecution responds to those motions.... [Smith] asked Judge Chutkan for permission to file first.... Trump’s team objected, and the judge acknowledged that Smith’s request to file first was “procedurally irregular” — moments before she ruled in Smith’s favor, as she’s done at virtually every consequential turn.

Smith has complained throughout the case that Trump’s words might taint the jury pool.... Yet Smith now uses grand-jury testimony (which ordinarily remains secret at this stage) and drafts up a tidy 165-page document that contains all manner of damaging statements about a criminal defendant, made outside of a trial setting and without being subjected to the rules of evidence or cross-examination, and files it publicly, generating national headlines. You know who’ll see those allegations? The voters, sure — and also members of the jury pool....

The Justice Manual — DOJ’s internal bible, essentially — contains a section titled “Actions That May Have an Impact on the Election.” Now: Does Smith’s filing qualify? May it have an impact on the election? Of course. So what does the rule tell us? “Federal prosecutors … may never select the timing of any action, including investigative steps, criminal charges, or statements, for the purpose of affecting any election.”

Remember, Smith begged the judge to flip the rules on their head so he could file this document first, and quickly — “any action,” by any reasonable definition — with the election right around the corner.....