Jack Smith’s ‘secret’ vendetta, a mental-health opportunity and other commentary

By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2025-01-15 22:14:44 | Updated at 2025-01-16 00:55:39 2 hours ago
Truth

Eye on DC: Jack Smith’s ‘Secret’ Vendetta

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith claims “he could have convicted Trump had Trump not won the presidency,” but he could hardly say he’d “spent all that time and money, and stirred up the country so much, on a case he thought he would lose,” snarks the Washington Examiner’s Bryon York. Yet “he could never, ever admit” “the single guiding fact of his prosecution,” namely “that he was working to indict, try, convict, and jail Trump before the 2024 election.” “Justice Department guidelines unambiguously forbid such political moves,” so Smith had to pretend, notably urging the Supreme Court to “rush, rush, rush” on the presidential-immunity question, all while “Smith never, ever mentioned the election he was racing to beat.” Yet: “The country knew what Jack Smith . . . was trying to accomplish, and a winning margin of the voters put an end to it on Election Day.”

From the right: A Mental-Health Opportunity

Donald Trump can “disrupt and realign the status quo” to address “America’s mental-health crisis,” argues Stephen Eide at UnHerd. In his first term, Trump “weakened restrictions on the use of Medicaid for psychiatric hospitalization,” now he can “make further progress” and so correct the mistaken “belief that serious mental illness could be treated on the cheap.” This doesn’t “mean the return of the asylum” as “community-based mental health will remain central,” as it “in many respects is really a family-based system.” Thus, putting families at the center of reforms “is the most coherent way to build an effective mental-health system, one that anticipates crises before tragedy strikes.” That’ll make us all beneficiaries.

Conservative: Pardoning Colleges for Jew-Hate

For “the worst move in Joe Biden’s pardon-spree” is fierce,” thunders Commentary’s Seth Mandel, consider “another recipient of undue clemency: the universities” who let antisemites run rampant after Oct. 7 are “getting mere wrist slaps from the Biden Office of Civil Rights,” a “preemptive pardon for their misbehavior.” Schools are being required do “practically nothing” to resolve cases for failing to project Jewish students. “This makes a mockery of the entire concept of civil-rights protections in public institutions” and is “intended to do nothing more than torpedo the application of civil-rights law to Jews.” Trump’s Office of Civil Rights should “make clear that taking anti-Semitism seriously” means fighting it “without legitimizing the standard anti-Zionist response.”

Biden beat: Joe’s Self-Damning Finale

“Joe Biden’s failed presidency is ending with a blizzard of decisions that validate voters’ rejection of his vice president,” argues The Washington Post’s George F. Will. “Three weeks after the 2024 election, Biden’s administration . . . provided almost $8 billion in subsidies to chip-maker Intel. Five days later, Intel’s CEO retired” to restore investor confidence in the struggling company. “The Biden administration’s investors of other people’s money already had sky-high confidence.” Biden now says he “regrets picking Merrick Garland as attorney general rather than someone who would have more quickly prosecuted Donald Trump,” which “is redundant evidence of his cognitive condition.” He also pardoned his son, which “to the suspicious, this looks like ‘the big guy’ . . . providing preemptive protection for Hunter and perhaps other members of his family.”

Confirmation watch: Why Mud’s Not Sticking

“The laundry list of allegations” against Pete Hegseth might “make it baffling to reliable Democratic voters that senators would nonetheless line up behind him,” but “it makes quite a bit more sense when you view them through a Republican’s lens,” explains Mediaite’s Isaac Schorr: “Democrats have long played dirty during nomination fights.” “They made Robert Bork, one of the preeminent legal minds of the last century, out to be a sexist, racist, Neanderthal,” and “put Miguel Estrada through a ruthless process during which his wife miscarried and after which she committed suicide.” This “demonstrated willingness to bite, kick, scratch, and ruin lives in the pursuit of political power” makes it no surprise that “Republicans have lowered their standards for their own.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board

Read Entire Article