Donald Trump

NY Times - Jack Smith, the special counsel who twice secured indictments of Donald J. Trump, said it was “ludicrous” to suggest he was motivated by partisan politics — and offered a scathing denunciation of the Trump Justice Department — in his first extended remarks since resigning in January.

“The idea that politics played a role in who worked on that case, or who got chosen, is ludicrous,” Mr. Smith said during an Oct. 8 interview with the former prosecutor Andrew Weissmann at the University College London that was posted online Tuesday.

Mr. Smith offered a dour hourlong assessment of Mr. Trump’s campaign of retribution against his enemies, rebuking the indictments of James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, over the objections of career prosecutors. He also called out the forced resignations of prosecutors who unsuccessfully opposed White House efforts to drop the bribery case against Mayor Eric Adams of New York.

“Nothing like what we see now has ever gone on,” he said.

“There are rules in the department about how to bring a case — follow those rules,” he added. “You can’t say: ‘I want this outcome. Let me throw the rules out.’