Jack Smith was a War Crimes Prosecutor. He worked for the International Criminal Court

From 2008 to 2010, Mr Smith served as Investigation Coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC). In that capacity, he supervised sensitive investigations of foreign government officials and militia for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Prior to being appointed Special Council by Attorney General Garland to investigate former POTUS Donald Trump, he was working at The Hague, investigating Kosovo war crimes committed by government leaders. Jack Smith is wired into the global institutions that bring criminal heads of state to justice. No doubt Smith knows ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan personally. Smith knows full well what a bold step it was for Khan to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian President Vladimir Putin. No head of state of one of the 5 permanent members of the United Nation's Security Council has ever individually been charged with a war crime before. No American ex-President has ever been indicted for any crime before either.

The timing of the charges filed against Putin may well have been dictated solely by the pace of the workings of the ICC, but whether adventent or not, the message it also sent Jack Smith can not be louder or clearer: The high and mighty MUST and SHALL be held accountable for their crimes. Everything we know about Jack Smith indicates that this is a truth he long ago internalized, but the warrant just issued against Vladimir Putin can't help but stiffen his resolve.