Former federal prosecutor cites the real reason Trump can't stop attacking special counsel Jack Smith
Former federal prosecutor Katzberg, who does commentary for Slate told the site that former President Donald Trump has a serious problem controlling himself.
No person likes being attacked, but it's dangerous when it comes to a judge or a federal prosecutor going on a public attack campaign that endangers the lives of those working for the court. There's no rule against it, given there isn't an indictment, much less a case. Still, Trump has gone on a spree over the past several months, alluding to special counsel Jack Smith being a partisan hack. He's attacked Smith's wife.
For a while, Trump had a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming Jack Smith wasn't his real name. His name is John Smith, but he goes by Jack. Slate cited Smith's local hometown newspaper that went to the high school to find a yearbook, finding that Smith did go by Jack as far back as his teens.
Slate asked Katzberg why Trump was doing it.
“I just don’t think he’s able to control himself. Any experienced lawyer would have resigned a long time before that," he said.
He attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA.” He insulted New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as “racists in reverse.” He then began using racially charged language about the two Black women and calling James "Peekaboo," confusing many trying to figure out what it meant. In the Urban Dictionary, "Peekaboo" has an X-rated connotation. The other is that Trump is referring to the racist word that begins with "J" and sounds a lot like peekaboo.
Katzberg thinks it all goes to Trump's insecurities. He explained Trump "has the thinnest skin of any human being in history and is incapable of keeping his mouth closed."
Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen thinks Trump has dementia.
"Let me put it to you this way," Cohen told Insider last year. "As you sit and listen to Trump speak, you realize that he has, at best, a 10-year-old's vocabulary. He's using peekaboo as a hide-and-seek term."
"His rambling about 'we were settling' and then questioning why anyone would settle when they're not guilty is indicative of some cognitive impairment," alleged Cohen.
He doesn't appear to be alone in allegations about Trump's health. Former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman said that. Trump intends to run for president again; then he should come clean about his "health" to the American people. She didn't elaborate further.
Another option could be similar to a legal tactic that Roger Stone used in 2020 during his case. During his trial, Stone regularly attacked the judge in his case. It finally came to a head when he posted a photo of the judge with a target by her face. Not long after, Stone and his lawyers demanded a different judge in the case, saying that Judge Amy Berman Jackson couldn't possibly be impartial after they'd spent months attacking her.
It could be a strategy Trump is trying to use, hoping he could get a better judge.
"Federal courts have long held that a party can't insult or antagonize a judge and then demand her recusal on the theory that the insults have biased her. That’s why President Trump couldn’t force United States District Judge Gonzalo Curiel off his case with his bigoted and boorish claims that Curiel’s ethnic background disqualified him from hearing the Trump University case," as The Atlantic explained in a 2019 piece.