Mr. Smith Meets Al Capone in Washington

Jack Smith speaks truth to power at hearing on Trump

“If you go after me, I’m coming after you,” Trump reportedly said of prospective witnesses, who were being or might have been interviewed in past years by the team of Jack Smith.

The former special counsel testified today on Capitol Hill primarily about his investigation of our nation’s disgraced chief executive on charges that Trump led an insurrection against our country on Jan. 6, 2021. Smith’s testimony today focused on that case, as opposed to another one in which Trump was accused of mishandling and storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago ballroom and bathroom.

Trump’s threatening words from several years ago, repeated at today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing, sounded like a line spoken by Robert De Niro’s Al Capone in The Untouchables, a Brian De Palma film.

We know that our twice-impeached chief executive likes to fashion himself a tough guy.

He likes surrounding himself with former athletes, wrestlers, football players and others who seem tough.

He even bragged about his supposed exploits as a Little Leaguer at a recent press conference marking the first anniversary of his return to office.

And, of course, he talks of “obliterating” and “decimating” others.

But some people, like Jack Smith, refuse to be intimidated.

Yes, we all know the relevance of the film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, regarding today’s hearing before Congress on Trump’s crimes against our country.

In that film, Jimmy Stewart’s Everyman does indeed go to Washington and shakes up the Congress by speaking truth to power.

That is what we all must do, speak truth to power, and we must do so, irrespective of any attempts to silence or intimidate us.

While The Untouchables and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are perhaps two of the clearest film comparisons to today’s proceeding, I was thinking about another film, My Bodyguard, which, like The Untouchables, also happens to be set in the Chicago area.

Released in the theaters in 1980, My Bodyguard is about a young protagonist, who is just starting high school. Chris Makepeace played the lead, a good kid and student, who encounters a classic bully, who tells him that he needs to pay lunch money for protection against another kid, a gentle giant, who according to the bully may be a violent threat.

“Hey, you and me, we’re going to have a talk after class, right?” says the bully, slyly played by Matt Dillon in one of his early roles, to Chris Makepeace’s character.

Of course, the story about the gentle giant is a lie.

That character, played by Adam Baldwin, is not a violent threat. He is a misunderstood youth, who is a bit of a loner and somewhat awkward socially.

But he is a decent kid, one who has been traumatized and defamed for years.

As it turns out, Adam Baldwin’s gentle giant becomes the bodyguard for Chris Makepeace’s character and the other sweet kids at the high school, until the bully played by Matt Dillon gets another punk, a bigger bully, to be his bodyguard.

It becomes inevitable that there will be a fight between the two bodyguards.

But what might be a bit surprising is that Chris Makepeace’s character, a much smaller kid, then fights and defeats Matt Dillon’s bully.

My Bodyguard certainly does not encourage violence. If anything, the film rejects it.

The characters played by Adam Baldwin and Chris Makepeace go to great lengths not to fight.

They do not invite or welcome violence at all.

But when attacked, they do defend themselves.

Jack Smith defended himself today on Capitol Hill, and he did so with great dignity.

He is not a person, who brags about his supposed exploits in Little League, like a youth I once knew, who, in the spirit of Trump, bought sports trophies that he had not earned and displayed them at his home.

It was disgraceful when that kid, a blowhard, like Trump, lied and bragged about his winning athletic awards that he never won.

As was noted at today’s hearing, Jack Smith, a triathonler, has completed the Iron Man a number of times. He is not only an accomplished and versatile athlete, who can cycle, swim and run long distances; he is also a man of honor and a patriot, who has no party affiliation. He has prosecuted and investigated Democrats, like John Edwards, as well as Republicans, like Trump.

He is also not unlike Lindsay Crouse’s character in The Verdict, a movie that came out in 1982, a couple of years after My Bodyguard.

In The Verdict, Crouse, whose character had wanted to be a nurse in Boston, is tracked down by Paul Newman’s attorney to testify against the Catholic Church in the commonwealth in a case, where many other witnesses have been too scared to appear in court.

She does indeed testify against the Church and helps Newman’s attorney win a case for justice, true justice against a corrupt entity.

We all know that there are Pharisees in the religious world, just as there are liars, traitors and frauds elsewhere, like Trump, who said recently, “I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done.”

Let’s just keep in mind that lying and bragging are two acts that do not please the Lord.

Some Republicans at today’s hearing tried to impugn Jack Smith as a partisan and less than competent prosecutor.

One Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, even called Jack Smith “a hypocrite.”

Jack Smith did not take the bait. He did not respond to that comment.

Rep. Van Drew’s language was laughable.

As mentioned earlier, Jack Smith is obviously a patriot, who comported himself today with dignity and honor, as he has throughout his nearly 30-year career as a prosecutor.

Not so Trump.

Trump has been bullying Greenlanders, Danes and NATO, while his ICE agents, without judicial warrants, have been breaking into homes and detaining Americans.

In the midst of his depraved policies in Minnesota, Europe and elsewhere, Trump wrote a post from Davos in which he urged his Justice Department to look into prosecuting Jack Smith.

In his post, the ignoble Trump, our twice-impeached chief executive, could not refrain from his signature all-caps renderings and referred to Jack Smith, an impeccably composed man, as a “deranged animal.”

Trump did not win the Nobel Prize, but he will always be the most ignoble bully we have ever encountered. He is a failed athlete and faux tough guy, who ducked the Vietnam War.

And, to paraphrase Bobby Dylan, all the trophies and money that Trump has taken can never buy back his soul.