D.C. Memo: Jack Smith hands Trump an ‘October surprise’

WASHINGTON — Even as Congress was on break, this week featured a number of “October surprises,” including Iran’s missile attack on Israel and special prosecutor Jack Smith’s long-awaited court filing on Donald Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Smith’s brief, unsealed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan late Wednesday, said Trump “resorted to crimes” while trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and should not escape charges. It challenges Trump’s claim that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that presidents have immunity for actions committed in office by saying the alleged offenses were carried out in a “private capacity” as a private citizen and political candidate.

Smith’s filing says Trump and his campaign and allies invented fraud allegations “out of whole cloth” and repeatedly changed the number of ballots that were purportedly fraudulent. The filing also says Trump did not believe claims from attorney Sidney Powell about voting machines changing ballots even as his campaign pushed that unfounded narrative.

Smith also says a Trump campaign staffer, after being told a group of disputed votes in Detroit in Biden’s favor were correct, said “find a reason” to claim the ballots were fraudulent, even if that led to violence. “Make them riot. Do it!!!,” the campaign staffer said.

The 165-page, partially redacted court filing repeated the contention that Trump knew about the violence that was taking place in the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, even as he resisted reining in his supporters for hours and even tweeted a post attacking Vice President Mike Pence when his life was in danger.

Trump reacted to Smith’s filing in the usual manner. “I didn’t rig the 2020 Election, they did!,” he posted on Truth Social.

Trump also said the unsealing of the court filing little more than a month before next month’s election and the day after Gov. Tim Walz’s “disastrous Debate performance” was “election interference.”

A high point for Walz in his debate with Trump presidential pick JD Vance on Tuesday was his challenge to his rival about the Jan. 6 rioting and Trump’s continued attacks on the validity of the 2020 election.

“This was a threat to our democracy in a way that we had not seen,” Walz said of the violence at the Capitol. “And it manifested itself because of Donald Trump’s inability to say, he is still saying he didn’t lose the election. I would just ask that. Did he lose the 2020 election?

Vance responded, “Tim, I’m focused on the future. Did Kamala Harris censor Americans from speaking their mind in the wake of the 2020 COVID situation?”

To which Walz retorted, “That is a damning nonanswer.”

Just hours after the debate, the Harris-Walz campaign released an ad that featured a clip of that exchange and videos of the rioting at the Capitol.

More on the debate

Campaigning in swing state Pennsylvania the day after the debate, Gov. Tim Walz clarified comments he made saying he befriended school shooters — a gaffe made during his defense of his positions on gun safety — and that he was in Hong Kong in the spring of 1989 during the Tiananmen Square massacre when he was not.

“Yeah, look, I have my dates wrong,” Walz told a small crowd of reporters, saying he “was in Hong Kong in China” in August of 1989. “It was profound for me — that was the summer of democracy.”

Walz also suggested that he had meant to say he had befriended school shooting victims like David Hogg, a survivor of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and a gun safety advocate, and families affected by mass shootings, like the one at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School.

“I need to be more specific on that, but I am, I am passionate about this,” Walz  said of the issue of gun violence. 

Walz also said he needed to be more careful about how he speaks. “These teachers see me,” he said, referring to some in the crowd around him. “I speak like everybody else speaks.”

Walz watch

After the CBS debate in New York City, Walz made several campaign stops in Pennsylvania this week, including a visit to Flinchbaugh’s Orchard and Farm Market in York, Pa.

The governor wandered through the store with the owners and asked about their apple dehydration process.

He watched one of their machines in action and touched on shaping farm policy. He also spoke of the dominance of corn and soybeans in Minnesota and the partisanship in Congress that has prevented the approval of a new farm bill.

“It used to be in the ag community. It wasn’t Democrats, Republicans,” he said. “It was corn and soybeans versus rice and cotton.”  

In case you missed it

-To take control of the Minnesota House, Republicans must gain four seats in the fall election. But only a few of the 134 House races are competitive this year. MinnPost interviewed caucus campaign leaders and looked at the past voting performance of the parties in each district to identify 16 races that are truly contested.

-Gov. Tim Walz’s debate with JD Vance this week was probably the most important public appearance of his political career. There were a few stumbles, and a couple of attacks that hit home, in an evening in which he talked more about Minnesota than running mate Kamala Harris.  

-Agriculture issues are usually not a top issue in a presidential race. But they are being considered as both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump compete for rural votes.  

Your questions and comments

A reader said this about last Saturday’s MinnPost Festival:

“I caught the latter part of Peggy Flanagan’s session, and then went to the one featuring the state demographer. They were equally interesting, and I discovered that Flanagan has both wit and a sense of humor. Those are valuable traits in a political figure,” the reader said.

The same reader also weighed in on the vice presidential debate:

“Vance won the debate, and Walz was uneven. The governor definitely had that “deer in the headlights” stare into the TV camera early on, though it eventually went away,” the reader said. “Vance came across much more smoothly … My voting decision was not affected by the performance of either candidate.”

Another reader defended Walz’s “misstatements” during that debate.

“Walz admitted fault. Real men do. Insecure, vain men don’t,” the reader said. “When Vance said he was wrong to make harsh and largely true statements about Trump, he simply said he was wrong and was not pushed to explain why. Calling Trump America’s Hitler?  That was a tough thing to say, but why did he say it and how does he think he can walk it back?”

Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at [email protected].

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