Jack Smith’s final letter on Trump case offers little consolation and less justice

There is a certain pathos to special prosecutor's insistence that his unfulfilled investigation was not in vain

A forlorn note from Jack Smith to Merrick Garland, the attorney general, provides a poignant epitaph into the unfulfilled and ultimately fruitless two-year criminal investigation into Donald Trump.

While we were not able to bring the cases we charged to trial, I believe the fact that our team stood up for the rule of law matters," the special prosecutor wrote in a letter attached to the 137-page report, which concludes that the president-elect would have been criminally convicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election if he had not been re-elected four years later.