A guy with Smith’s resume doesn’t give up his job at The Hague to flit over to the US only to announce there will be no prosecutions. The statements of both Garland and Smith were very reassuring and on point over what the public is concerned about.
While I believe Garland’s stated reasons are legitimate, I think there are also unstated legitimate reasons for Garland to add this layer of protection. Namely, when Jim Jordan and his cohorts begin their “investigations” into Garland, Garland will be able to honestly say he has no current knowledge about the status of the investigations into Trump. If the Dems had prevailed in the mid-terms, I’m quite sure Garland wouldn’t have taken this step. But this is one reason why it was important for him to know which way the mid-terms were going to go before making any move against Trump.
Mr. Smith sounds energetic and ready to go. I don’t think we’ll wait too long before things proceed apace. Both Garland and Smith placed emphasis on their intentions that the investigations proceed without delay.
Lastly, I like how Garland moved only the portions of the January 6th investigation concerning the higher-ups to Smith’s purview. Read Mark Meadows, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, et al. He’s leaving the actual, low-level insurrectionists in the Capitol under DC jurisdiction.
If by some ghastly quirk of fate a Republican wins the 2024 presidential election, Merrick Garland can be fired. It will be much harder to get rid of the special counsel.
I don’t want to get my hopes up, having been burnt once by Mueller, but I think bringing in a guy with experience in prosecuting actual dictators just might be a freaking brilliant move on Garland’s part……not to mention that I suspect Garland had Smith lined up and waiting in the wings.
I suggest you read the article @Hoops cited above. It clarifies why Garland had to appoint a Special Counsel, and explains that Smith is the one who decides on who will be prosecuted and for what.
Under 28 C.F.R. § 600.1, the attorney general is required to appoint a special counsel under two separate situations in which a “criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted.” In the first circumstance, there must be a “conflict of interest for the Department.” In the second, some “other extraordinary circumstances” must exist to require the appointment of a special counsel. Under either circumstance, the attorney general must also consider whether “it would be in the public interest to appoint” one.
Trump’s announcement arguably triggered the “conflict of interest” language of the regulation: How is it not a conflict of interest to investigate or prosecute a man who is running for office and would fire you if elected?
Under the terms of his appointment order, Special Counsel Jack Smith will take control of parts of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, along with its investigation into sensitive documents held improperly at Mar-a-Lago.
[snip]
In other words, it seems that the lower-level cases involving rioters at the Capitol—including the high-profile seditious conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys—will stay where they currently are. On the other hand, the investigation of the political echelon figures will migrate to the special counsel, which will handle any prosecutions that may arise from it.
[The appointment] means that someone other than the attorney general himself will ultimately decide the disposition of the Trump investigations. It means that someone other than Garland will review whatever prosecution memoranda the teams on the Mar-a-Lago and Jan. 6 investigations produce. And it means that these decisions will be made outside of a Justice Department hierarchy whose processes and prestige Garland has devoted so much energy to reinvigorating.
In response to the appointment of the Special Counsel, the Orange One just twuthed (once again) the comical claim that both George H.W. Bush and Obama also made off with top secret government documents – and kept them in a Chinese restaurant next to a bowling alley. I mean, WTF? It’s a good insight into how his deranged mind works. What could anyone with even half a brain think this is going to accomplish? Who is it going to convince, and to what end? It’s just sad, watching really stupid and deranged individuals embarrass themselves.
Those presidents worked with NARA and were careful to follow the law when removing old documents to store in their libraries. Trump is like the guy who was driving drunk, going southbound in the northbound lane of rush hour traffic on a freeway, got into an accident, flees the scene, and when caught blamed everything on his wife. And then later whined that “all those other people driving on the freeway didn’t get in trouble”.
Smith is starting with investigations in full swing. He has Georgia and dc going at full bore with tons of information at the ready. He will hopefully get all the work the congressional committee has done before they break.
I believe things will move quickly now, I’m thinking January for recommendations to start rolling.
I believe that garland has made this move so that there is an unbiased pair of eyes on all of this. He has picked someone who is out of the us political world. When garland announced this move I saw it at the ultimate t crossing and I doting, which tracks with garland’s way of working. Garland is protecting the justice department with this move.
The Georgia investigation into trumps election fraud is outside of Smith’s purview. It’s a state level prosecution, so it will be going along independently and in parallel.
No, but Senator Graham has been in federal court trying to get a judge to say that he can’t be forced to appear before the state grand jury because trying to overturn an election is part of his constitutional duties as a senator.
LOL. No. There is no universe where anything remotely like this occurs.
As always, your conspiracy theorist like cheat code vision of how the law works is very amusing, but it tells us very little about how legal matters will play out.