Prof. Richard Painter Quoted in New York Times About Jack Smith Responding to Trump Administration Allegations

Professor Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, was quoted in the New York Times about former special counsel Jack Smith responding to administration officials who have publicly attacked him and accusing him of engaging in wrongdoing for overseeing two criminal inquiries and indictments of Donald Trump. The investigations involved whether Trump mishandled classified documents after he left office as well as his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. On Monday, Smith’s legal team sent a letter to the Office of Special Counsel, which conducts ethics investigations of government employees, primarily into whether people have violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal workers from using their jobs to work on behalf of a political campaign. In the letter, Smith’s attorneys said, “Mr. Smith followed well-established legal principles in conducting the investigations into President Trump, and the courts presiding over the resulting prosecutions have already rejected the spurious allegations that the manner in which Mr. Smith prosecuted these cases was somehow improper.” Prof. Painter said the argument for a Hatch Act investigation made little sense. He said, “I just don’t see how this comes anywhere close to a Hatch Act violation. If Smith had made public statements shortly before the election about the filings, we would have an issue that would need to be addressed. Or if he’d written Congress, it would need to be addressed. I see no evidence that Jack Smith did anything of the kind. He simply filed pleadings with the court, and the pleadings were accepted by the courts.”