Rantz: Justice Department engages in more lawfare, smears by releasing special counsel’s Trump report

In the latest example of lawfare from Democrats, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (DOJ) announced it will release one volume of special counsel Jack Smith’s findings on efforts by Donald Trump to challenge the 2020 presidential election. It’s a petty, vindictive and unnecessary move.

The release reeks of political gamesmanship, not justice. Coming on the heels of Trump’s surging poll numbers and a mandate to undo the damage of the Biden administration, the timing of this move is meant to provide material for left-wing media outlets and bad-faith Democrats to tarnish the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Attorney General Merrick Garland and Smith’s decision to release is less of an effort to inform the public and more like another salvo in the ongoing campaign of lawfare against Trump. What’s the argument for releasing the report when there’s already a voluminous amount of information already out there? While the American people clearly do not care about this, and previous attempts to smear the president with document releases have fallen flat, it deprives Trump and the American people of a clean transition of power. As bad, it will be another reason for our institutions to earn the distrust of tens of millions of Americans.

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Why release more documents against Donald Trump? To smear him

The report does not bring anything new to light. Instead, it rehashes points already debated in public and scrutinized in legal proceedings. The deliberate rollout of this report is unnecessary, adding nothing of substance to what the American people already know.

“This limited disclosure will further the public interest in keeping congressional leadership apprised of a significant matter within the Department while safeguarding defendants’ interests,” a federal filing by Smith claimed. Oh please.

This is about feeding endless media narratives designed to vilify Trump, and explain just how deeply political the Justice Department has become under Biden.

The decision to release this report further erodes trust in an institution already under fire for its double standards. The American public has watched the DOJ under Garland and Biden pursue Trump with a fervor that has been conspicuously absent in other high-profile cases, like the mishandling of classified material. Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and Joe Biden’s own mishandled documents remain largely untouched by the same aggressive scrutiny Trump faces. Both Clinton and Biden violated the law, but got passes. Clinton avoided prosecution as a way to avoid interfering with the presidential election at the time, a position the DOJ reversed when going after Trump. Biden got a pass because he is a doddering old man who would be too sympathetic to a jury.

This is an example of lawfare against Donald Trump

What’s worse is the precedent this sets. It is a dangerous tactic.

Using reports like this to keep political adversaries perpetually under a cloud of suspicion weaponizes federal agencies. Imagine what this country will look like if every administration begins using federal agencies to target their political opponents. It would have a chilling effect on democracy and no amount of left-wing hatred of Donald Trump is worth the consequences.

In the end, this release serves no one but Garland, Smith and the Democrat party in the eyes of the most unhinged members of their base. It cheapens the Justice Department’s credibility, distracts from Biden’s failures, and reminds Americans that justice in this country often depends on which political party you belong to. The American people deserve better than this orchestrated hit job disguised as transparency. The voters already chose Trump. Democrats ought to deal with it.

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