It’s a “sign of desperation” that former President Donald Trump is attacking the wife of the special prosecutor appointed to oversee two federal criminal investigations into his actions, a former federal prosecutor said.
In an analysis posted on his YouTube channel Saturday, Glenn Kirschner slammed Trump for his “inane accusations” against veteran prosecutor Jack Smith, whom Attorney General Merrick Garland recently appointed to oversee the probes into Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump and his allies have been up in arms that Smith’s wife, documentary filmmaker Katy Chevigny, worked as a producer on Michelle Obama’s “Becoming,” and, according to FEC filings, donated $2,000 to President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. In a Truth Social post last week, Trump used that information as supposed evidence to support his persistent claims that the Justice Department is being weaponized against him, calling Smith a “hard-line Radical Left Special Counsel.”
Trump is acting desperate, Kirschner argued, because he “finally knows that accountability is coming for him.”
He also predicted that Trump’s strategy would flop. “Think about it. If the target of an investigation could create a conflict by attacking the prosecutor’s spouse, and then maybe somehow convincing people that the prosecutor’s gotta go, well, wouldn’t that just encourage guys like Donald Trump to go after the prosecutor’s spouse? Or family member? None of this will work.”
Kirschner argued that it was absurd to suggest that the spouse of a prosecutor can’t hold political beliefs or engage in political activity.
He explained: “So Trump alleges that if the prosecutor’s spouse is a Democrat, well then the prosecutor cannot go after … corrupt or criminal Republican politicians because of the prosecutor’s spouse’s politics. That’s absurd.”
“And think about the corollary,” he continued. “Well, if the prosecutor’s spouse is a Democrat, then the prosecutor shouldn’t be allowed to go after Democrats either, because presumably, because of the prosecutor spouse’s politics, the prosecutor would go easy on Democrats.
“So if you take Trump’s argument to its logical conclusion, if a prosecutor’s spouse is political in any way … the prosecutor cannot prosecute anybody who’s a Republican or a Democrat.”
No legal requirements prevent the partners of federal prosecutors or law enforcement from engaging in political activity or making political donations.
Many conservatives have been quick to criticize Smith’s wife’s views as a conflict of interest, though notably did not join the uproar when it was revealed that Ginni Thomas, the wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was an avid supporter of Trump’s big lie about the 2020 vote. Ginni Thomas drew fierce scrutiny not because she was a conservative activist but because she participated in an effort to overturn a democratic election.
