Anti-Trump special counsel Jack Smith is on a mission to jail Donald Trump and interfere in the 2024 presidential election.
But Smith’s quest hit a stumbling block.
And Jack Smith just got hit with some bad news about prosecuting Donald Trump.
Just before Smith indicted Trump on his bogus and sham charges Americans learned about the existence of a second grand jury in Florida.
Smith originally ran his investigation out of a grand jury in Washington, D.C.
That’s because Smith hoped to hold a kangaroo court with a stacked jury pulled from a pool where 95 percent of the residents are Democrats and where Smith could count on a reliable Trump-hating judge.
But the Florida grand jury convened because Smith knew he would lose a fight on venue.
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Americans the right to a trial in the venue where the government accused them of committing crimes.
And that means Smith would have to try his case in federal district court in Miami-Dade County.
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon won the assignment to the case.
Cannon was already skeptical of the Mar-a-Lago witch hunt as evidenced by her ruling last year granting Trump a special master to sort out documents protected by privilege from what the FBI raid team seized.
Trump also won 46 percent of the vote in Miami-Dade County which is home to a very MAGA enthusiast Cuban population.
Lawyers who worked as both prosecutors and defense attorneys in Miami told The Messenger’s Marc Caputo that the population in South Florida is very skeptical of the government and Smith faces a high bar to win a conviction.
“I would absolutely try this case in Washington D.C.,” former federal prosecutor Richard Gregorie told Caputo.
“People who operate in D.C. have no idea what it’s like down here. Prosecuting politicians is hard here,” Gregorie continued. “The people are just suspicious of government all over South Florida.”
In the 1990s and 2002 Gregorie failed to win convictions on public corruption charges against former Miami Mayors Julio Robaina and Raul Martinez.
Caputo filled in more background listing off the criminal cases against public officials where juries in Miami handed down acquittals.
“More recently, in 2019, other federal prosecutors lost a public corruption case against a former Miami Lakes mayor. And long before that, in the 1980s, federal prosecutors lost a bribery case against a politically active federal judge, Alcee Hastings, who beat the rap, was removed from office by the U.S. Senate and then won a congressional seat in 1992. He held office until his death in 2021,” Caputo reported.
Defense attorney David Oscar Markus won an acquittal last May in the case of former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum.
Gillum lost to Ron DeSantis in the 2018 Florida gubernatorial election and then faced charges over lying to the FBI.
Markus declared it is nearly impossible to win a conviction against Trump in Miami.
“Forget documents, if Trump shot someone on Calle Ocho, a Miami jury would find him not guilty,” Markus exclaimed.
Attorney General Merrick Garland handpicked Smith for this case knowing Smith was a guided missile aimed squarely at destroying Trump’s political career.
Smith has a history of unjust and abusive prosecutions of Republicans as evidenced by a unanimous 8-0 Supreme Court verdict tossing Smith’s bribery conviction against former Virginia GOP Governor Bob McDonnell.
But if Smith thought he could set up a rigged kangaroo court in Washington, D.C., he was mistaken.