Ex-Bush official's NYT column on Jack Smith sparks sharp rebuttal from legal experts

A former assistant attorney general for George W. Bush penned a column for The New York Times trashing special counsel Jack Smith, and two top legal scholars issued their own takedown.

Former Justice Department official Andrew Weissmann and ex-Defense Department special counsel Ryan Goodman called Jack Goldsmith's attack likely political in a piece for Just Security.

The first thing Goodman pointed out is that Goldsmith's opinion appears to have evolved depending on which party controls the Justice Department. He posted a 2020 column from TIME in which Goldsmith said that then-Attorney General Bill Barr should have "enormous discretion" to ignore the informal policy about not announcing indictments 60 days before an election.

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In his recent column for the New York Times, Goldsmith called it "crucial" for current Attorney General Merrick Garland to comply with the rule.

"Simply put, DOJ’s 60-Day Rule against taking actions before an election DOES NOT APPLY and apparently never has to a case after an indictment has been filed," Goodman said.

Trump's election case has been going on for years and is in the hands of the court, not the DOJ, he said.

Meanwhile, on Sept. 5, Judge Tanya Chutkan "repeatedly said that the parties must go ahead without pretrial briefing being suspended or delayed by the campaign calendar," said Goodman. He accused Goldsmith of having "no awareness" of that fact.

The Times editorial implied that Smith aims to impact the 2024 election, which Goldman said would "require a conspiracy vast in scope at the Justice Department. It also ignores a ton of glaring details in court proceedings."

The two legal experts give even more details in their point-by-point takedown here.