Jack Smith Faces Hatch Act Probe Over Trump Prosecutions
Former DOJ Special Counsel under investigation for allegedly politicizing Trump indictments during 2024 election cycle
Washington, August 2 EST: Jack Smith, the federal prosecutor who became the face of the legal reckoning against Donald Trump, is now under the microscope himself. The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has launched an investigation into whether Smith’s pursuit of Trump crossed the line from prosecutorial discretion into political manipulation.
At the heart of the probe is the Hatch Act, a New Deal-era law crafted to prevent civil servants from moonlighting as political operatives. Smith, once Special Counsel at the Department of Justice, is accused of doing just that using his legal authority to interfere in the 2024 election, according to a referral filed by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).
Prosecutorial Judgment or Political Timing?
The OSC inquiry centers on Smith’s decision to fast-track court dates for Trump’s criminal trials, some of which aligned suspiciously with early Republican primary contests like the Iowa caucuses. The implication is that these weren’t just legal decisions they were strategic ones.
Smith has made no public comment. But his silence, while consistent with his prosecutorial style, may not serve him well this time. In the absence of explanation, perception fills the void and the perception on the right is that Smith wasn’t just playing by the rules, but playing the game.
Whether that’s true remains to be seen. The Hatch Act doesn’t prohibit prosecutors from filing charges, even in politically sensitive cases. What it forbids is using public office for partisan ends. Drawing that distinction is where the OSC’s work and its risk begins.
The Ironies of Power
Smith’s predicament carries more than a hint of irony. Appointed in 2022 to shield the DOJ from accusations of bias, he now finds himself the poster child for alleged politicization. His job was to prove that no one not even a former president was above the law. Now, some argue, he may have tested that principle in the opposite direction.
This isn’t new ground. American politics is littered with examples of prosecutors ensnared in the power dynamics they were hired to police. Think Archibald Cox, fired in the Saturday Night Massacre. Or James Comey, whose 2016 letter arguably reshaped a presidential race. The point isn’t that Smith did what they did but that in politically supercharged cases, even neutrality gets interpreted as agenda.
Legal Limits, Political Fallout
The OSC can’t indict Smith or drag him into court. It can issue findings, recommend discipline, or refer matters to the DOJ. But Smith is already gone he stepped down in January 2025, before either of the Trump cases went to trial.
That limits the OSC’s tools. What’s left is reputational damage both for Smith and for the institutions that empowered him. And in the shadow politics of Washington, that’s often enough.
If the OSC concludes that Smith acted improperly, it will reverberate well beyond the narrow confines of ethics law. It would hand Trump a rhetorical victory and further fuel conservative claims that the justice system has become a partisan battleground. But even a clean bill of health for Smith may do little to reverse public skepticism. The damage, in many ways, is already baked in.
Institutional Fragility
The OSC itself is not immune from scrutiny. Its acting chief, Paul Ingrassia, is awaiting Senate confirmation amid questions about his own political ties. Advocacy groups have raised alarms about the agency’s ability to conduct an impartial investigation, especially in a case with such heavy ideological freight.
The stakes here aren’t just about one man or one case. They’re about whether federal law enforcement can operate credibly in an era when every high-profile prosecution is immediately cast as political warfare.
Jack Smith’s Legacy, Rewritten?
Smith built his career on holding power to account from prosecuting war crimes in The Hague to taking on corrupt U.S. officials. He was chosen for his reputation as a prosecutor who doesn’t blink. But now, that reputation is under review not for lack of nerve, but for where and how he aimed it.
The question isn’t just whether Jack Smith violated the Hatch Act. It’s whether his sense of justice was so uncompromising that it failed to see how fragile public trust had become.
And in Washington, that kind of miscalculation can be as damning as intent.
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A political science PhD who jumped the academic ship to cover real-time governance, Olivia is the East Coast's sharpest watchdog. She dissects power plays in Trenton and D.C. without bias or apology.
