The Reckoning That Wasn’t
Jack Smith’s Testimony Reveals the Full Scope of Trump’s Criminality— And the System That Let Him Walk Free
Of course Jim Jordan chose New Year’s Eve, that liminal moment when champagne corks are popping and resolutions are forming, to release the transcript that should have ended Donald Trump’s political career. The 255 pages landed with all the fanfare of a whispered confession at a deafening party. Which was, of course, precisely the point.
But for those of us who bothered to read the thing—and someone must, if only to serve as witness—Jack Smith's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on December 17th constitutes nothing less than a comprehensive indictment of the 47th President of the United States, delivered under oath, in meticulous prosecutorial detail. The Smith who emerges from these pages is neither the partisan hitman of Republican fantasy nor the avenging angel of liberal imagination. He is something more interesting, and to Trump, I am sure, more troubling: a genuine professional, operating by the old rules in an era that has discarded them entirely. It is also, inadv…
