Chutkan has not appended Smith’s submission with any of those fundamental due-process protections. She has just released it to the press — the opposite of what a judge concerned about the jury pool and the defendant’s fair-trial rights would do.

But again, this is not a legal exercise, it’s a political one.

Chutkan and Smith have never been worried about prejudicing the Washington, D.C., jury pool. Rather, Smith chose Washington as the venue for both of his investigations — even the probe of the case in which everything of consequence happened in Florida — because of its hostility to Trump. He sees that default setting as a benefit, not a flaw. Furthermore, there is a good chance that no trial of this case will ever occur. Even if it does, it would be more than a year from now. No one is even pretending, for appearances’ sake, that the jury pool is a current front-of-mind concern.