It’s impossible not to suspect the special counsel’s filing is politically motivated.

Politics hath no fury like a prosecutor scorned, and it appears the American electorate won’t be allowed to forget it. That’s the best read of special counsel Jack Smith’s newly unsealed filing in his criminal case against Donald Trump. Congratulations, Attorney General Merrick Garland: You’ve got your own 2024 “election interference” story line.

Mr. Smith filed the 165-page brief last week, his latest response to an embarrassing defeat at the Supreme Court in July.

A sober litigator would have stepped back, allowed the voters to render their judgment on Mr. Trump and his bad behavior, and regroup in November. Here’s what Mr. Smith did instead. He rushed to file a superseding indictment in August that alleged the same four crimes, taking a minuscule view of core constitutional powers. He then requested the trial judge allow him to file an “oversized” brief—up to 180 pages—laying out the government’s arguments against immunity, and asking her to unseal it. Judge Tanya Chutkan granted the requests, ignoring the Trump legal team’s opposition to a brief that was “quadruple the standard page limits” and that allowed the prosecution “to proffer their untested and biased views to the Court and the public as if they are conclusive.” That brief was made public on Wednesday, 34 days before the election. Which is the point. You don’t have to be a cynic to suspect Mr. Smith of brass-knuckle politicking. He knows that if Mr. Trump wins in November, both his cases (this one, involving Jan. 6, and the other, involving classified documents) are dead. Ergo Mr. Smith is actively working to undermine a Trump re-election by presenting to the public a bevy of new claims painting the nominee as criminal.

If this is the Democrats’ best “October Surprise,” former President Donald Trump doesn’t sound surprised at all. Trump wasted no time branding the move “election interference” by a prosecutor. “This was a weaponization of government, and that’s why it was released 30 days before the election,” Trump told NewsNation’s correspondent Ali Bradley on Wednesday during an interview in Houston. The goal wasn’t legal, he said, it was political — a deliberate effort to aid Vice President Kamala Harris’ bid to succeed President Joe Biden in the White House.

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