Ben Cline, who fancies himself a bulldog lawyer, had his bits snipped by actual bulldog lawyer Jack Smith, but we knew that was going to happen, the second the TV cameras panned to Cline.
Cline, clearly out of his element, tried, in a House Judiciary Committee on Thursday featuring Smith, the former special prosecutor who brought charges against Donald Trump related to Jan. 6 and a classified-documents case, to play gotcha, using the case in which Smith secured a corruption conviction against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell as his ammunition.
Ben Cline playing gotcha with anybody is bound to get over like the proverbial wet fart in church.
The choice of the McDonnell case as the tool here is curious, given the facts of the case.
ICYMI
- Two years for Bob McDonnell in federal corruption case
- Supreme Court overturns Bob McDonnell corruption convictions
- Scholars comment on Supreme Court ruling in McDonnell corruption case
That case, tried over a decade ago, involved the former rising star governor’s relationship with a medical company CEO, Johnnie Williams, who had loaned money to McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, after Maureen McDonnell had noted to Williams that she and her husband were having money problems.
Williams also provided access to luxury cars and vacation homes to the former First Couple, and paid for a shopping spree for the former First Lady and a Rolex watch that she gave to the governor.
The total value of the gifts and loans was an estimated $175,000.
In exchange for the gifts and loans, Williams wanted the governor to set up meetings with representatives of state colleges and universities and heads of state agencies to promote his company’s products, and McDonnell obliged, helping his benefactor get in front of some key decision-makers, though none of those meetings panned out into business for Williams.
Cline relitigates McDonnell case
Ben Cline: Mr. Smith, you’ve said several times in your deposition that you believe that the facts and the law, your interpretation of the law, would lead to a conviction of President Trump. Is that correct?
Jack Smith: Yes.
Ben Cline: And did you believe that same thing, that your interpretation of the law, your reading of the law, would have resulted in the conviction when you went after Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell back in 2014. Did you believe it at the time?
Jack Smith: I did.
Ben Cline: Ultimately you got a conviction in lower court, but that was overturned by the Supreme Court, correct?
Jack Smith: Yes, the Supreme Court changed the law on what constituted an “official act.” So, that conviction was overturned.
Ben Cline: That’s incorrect. They applied the law, and they said in their ruling, our concern is not with “tawdry tales of Ferraris, Rolexes and ball gowns. It’s instead with the broader legal implications of the government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute. A more limited interpretation of the term ‘official act’ leaves ample room for prosecuting corruption while comporting with the text of the statute and the precedent of this court.” They accused you of using a boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.
The term “official act” doesn’t actually appear in the language of the statutes charged in the case.
By definition, then, Chief Justice John Roberts, whose decision was quoted by Cline in the hearing today, was, in fact, applying a new standard to the McDonnell bribery case, which Smith alluded to, when he said “the Supreme Court changed the law on what constituted an “official act.”
The 8-0 Court didn’t “accuse” Smith of “using a boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute”; the Court was narrowing the definition of bribery, the fallout from which we are very much dealing with today, with tales almost daily of people using money to obtain presidential pardons and win approval for billions in government contracts.
It shouldn’t take Monday morning quarterbacking to realize that Ben Cline maybe shouldn’t have brought up the Bob McDonnell case in the context of trying to make a point about Jack Smith being guilty of overreach, when in reality, it was one of the early examples of what we know now as the Trump Court doing its best to overturn 200-plus years of judicial precedent protecting us from a government bought and paid for by oligarchs.
Cline, though, not to be outdone – his resume brags about his time as an assistant county prosecutor, which sounds nice, to those who have never set foot in a local courtroom, and sat through an endless docket of cases involving fender-benders and jaywalking citations – pressed on, and directed his legal chops, such as they are, at the gag-order requests that Smith made in his cases involving Trump.
Cline gags on gag orders
Ben Cline: Let’s move on to the Court’s interpretation of your gag order requests. Mr. Smith, America was founded on the principle that the government doesn’t silence political speech, in particular speech before it happens. You sought a prior restraint against President Trump without a single violation of pretrial release. In fact, there was no real world harm that you could articulate to justify giving the federal government the power to silence him as a presidential candidate.
Jack Smith: The court granted those motions and found that the prosecutor did not have to wait until someone was harmed to make such a motion.
Ben Cline: Actually, the request was rejected when the case was, actually, when you actually were not able to, it was restricted, correct? The gag order was restricted, correct?
Jack Smith: Well, we filed for an order in the District Court. The District Court granted an order. President Trump appealed that order, the Court of Appeals absolutely agreed that there was a basis, and that the threats to witnesses that came from the targeting by Donald Trump were real, and that we had a duty to protect them. You are correct in that the Court of Appeals narrowed the order so the order covered witnesses, court staff, the judge and my staff. The difference was that it didn’t cover me anymore, which I was fine with.
Ben Cline: Did you have any evidence that President Trump’s statements about the cases against him intimidated witnesses or prevented them from coming forward?
Jack Smith: I had evidence that he said, If you come after me, I’m coming after you. He asked, he suggested a witness should be put to death. The courts found that those sort of statements not only deter witnesses who have come forward, they deter witnesses who have yet to come forward.
Ben Cline: But you weren’t able to identify a single witness who didn’t come forward because they were intimidated by President Trump.
Jack Smith: We had extremely thorough evidence that his statements were having an effect on the proceedings that is not permitted in any court of law in the United States.
Ben Cline: Don’t you think it’s a pretty low bar to clear if you’re trying to silence a candidate for president? I mean, if you can’t identify a single witness who’s intimidated, that maybe you should reconsider the gag order.
Jack Smith: Both courts upheld the orders, and it is not incumbent on a prosecutor to wait until someone gets killed before they move for an order to protect the proceedings.
Ben Cline: Did anyone on your team raise concerns that this expansive gag order you were seeking would infringe on President Trump’s First Amendment rights?
Jack Smith: My recollection is that we, of course, discussed First Amendment issues regarding this application, because I and my staff respect the First Amendment, but the First Amendment does not allow one to make statements that interfere with the administration of justice in a judicial proceeding. My interpretation was supported and agreed upon by the District Court and the Court of Appeals in terms of the phenomena of the statements being made, targeting individuals, causing threats to happen to them. I would also add, sir, in the days after Donald Trump made some of these statements, the District Court in this case received vile threats, threats to the District Court’s life. In that environment, I felt a duty as a prosecutor to make that motion, and I make no apologies.
Game, set, match.
Team Trump, tuning in, had to be cringing.
Somebody was cleaning ketchup from the walls in the White House dining room, is what I’m saying there.
There’s a reason we don’t see Ben Cline trotted out by the MAGAs to defend Trump on Fox News, CNN, the Sunday morning news shows, anything outside of Newsmax and MyPillowTV, whose Nielsen numbers, on average, consist of 13 people whose remotes no longer work, and a guy who can’t get the pet-store owner to take back his dead parrot.
My continued thanks to Louise Lucas for doing what she’s doing to ensure that Ben Cline doesn’t get to embarrass us in front of the world like this for that much longer.
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Chris Graham
