Journalist James Risen got the full Jack Smith

JACK SMITH CAME after me. If he goes after Donald Trump with the same unrelenting ferocity, Trump will be in trouble.

[...]

Trump’s early [presidential candidate] announcement was clearly an effort to insulate himself from criminal prosecution, and [AG Merrick] Garland’s countermove [appointing Jack Smith special counsel] seems designed to frustrate the ex-president’s attempt to use the political system for his personal legal benefit.

[...]

Unfortunately, I have firsthand experience with Smith’s aggressiveness. He was part of the Justice Department team that turned my life upside down by trying, for seven years, to force me to reveal confidential sources that I’d used to report on a botched CIA operation.

[...]

The Justice Department kept coming at me, even though the federal judge in my case repeatedly ruled against them and sided with me. Each time the judge quashed one of their subpoenas, I thought I was finally done — but then the prosecutors would issue another one. It was excruciating.

[...]

I won the battle in 2015, but only after the case went to the Supreme Court, and only after then-Attorney General Eric Holder ordered the prosecutors to back off because he was getting so much bad press for seeking to jail a reporter for refusing to disclose his confidential sources.

  The Intercept

I remember it well, and felt sure they would ruin James Risen. But, thankfully, he's still here.

Justice Department prosecutors have repeatedly targeted low-level officials, like former NSA contractor Reality Winner, in leak investigations and have sought draconian sentences against them. By contrast, they have shown extraordinary leniency toward high-ranking officials, like former CIA Director David Petraeus, caught up in similar investigations, many of whom have been let off with the legal equivalent of a slap on the wrist.

[...]

The question for Smith is whether he will seek heavy charges against Trump, like he and the Justice Department sought in [...] many other low-level officials in the past, or will he give Trump the kid-glove treatment that other high-ranking officials have so long enjoyed?

His decision on the Mar-a-Lago case will show whether Smith really is an aggressive prosecutor — or just aggressive against the powerless.

And now that his wife's connection to the political left has been reported, he will no doubt be getting plenty of right-wing public pressure, including, of course, from Trump himself. 

I don't know that Garland gained anything politically or publicly by appointing Smith. In fact, he may have made it worse.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.