Jack Smith has gone to the Cayman Islands, and the internet has decided he is never coming back. The former special counsel was seen this week at a Florida airport boarding a flight to Grand Cayman with what onlookers described as an impressive amount of luggage. Someone took a photo. Someone else posted it. By dinnertime, the story had become a full-blown meme festival.
The theory, as told by about a million people online, is simple. Smith is disappearing. “He’s not on vacation, he’s on sabbatical from America,” one user joked. Another posted a map of the Caribbean with a red circle and the words, “Last seen here.”
By the next morning, his name was trending alongside the word fleeing, which friends say he found more funny than annoying.
There is no evidence of anything other than a man taking a trip. The Caymans are full of tourists, and plenty of retirees and lawyers go there to sit in the sun. But Smith, after years in the headlines, does not get the benefit of being boring.
“If any other lawyer took this flight, nobody would notice,” said Alexa Bruno, a legal analyst and former Capitol Hill aide. “Jack Smith takes this flight, and suddenly every person with a phone is a detective. He picked the most suspicious-sounding island on Earth for a nap.”
The memes have been relentless. One account created a fake travel brochure titled “Escape To The Caymans, Where Nobody Asks Questions.” Another edited Smith into a scene from a pirate movie, waving goodbye from the deck of a ship.
And then there were the pardon jokes, which may be the most popular of all. With pardons dominating the news, commentators started joking that Smith forgot to get one for himself.
“Jack Smith does not have an autopardon,” one host said on air, “and most likely could not afford one even if he did.”
The audience roared, and the clip has been shared nonstop since. Smith’s defenders say the joke is silly, and it is, but even they admit it is pretty funny.
According to friends, the trip was planned months ago. Smith reportedly wants to rest, swim, and stay far away from anything resembling a courtroom or a cable news studio. One acquaintance said he plans to be gone for several weeks and has asked people not to tag him in anything.
That request has not been honored. If anything, the attention has only grown, with users posting updates on the weather in George Town as if they were tracking a fugitive rather than a man with a beach towel.
“He’ll be back,” Bruno said. “And when he comes back, he’ll have a tan, and everyone will pretend they never said anything.”
For now, the internet is enjoying its favorite new game, guessing where Jack Smith is hiding. He is probably at the pool. Smith’s representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
