19 November 2022

Special Prosecutor Named for Trump

It was inevitable once Trump announced his candidacy for the Presidency again, and Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith as Special Prosecutor, which is an interesting choice.

The reason for this being interesting for a number of reasons:

  • He is a former head of the DoJ's public integrity section, so he is well suited to the position.
  • He was involved in the Brooklyn US Attorney's office investigation of Trump for traud in the 1990s. (There is a typo in the article as to the date)
  • Most recently, he has been working on war crimes investigations at International Criminal Court in the Hague, and Trump initiated sanctions against some of his co-workers there for doing their jobs in Afghanistan and Israel.
  • He has a background in the mishandling of classified information.

All in all, I think that this guy will likely be a scrupulous and relentless in his investigation of Trump, but the example of Lucy and the football still applies.

The US attorney general Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to determine whether Donald Trump should face criminal charges stemming from investigations into the former’s president’s alleged mishandling of national security materials and his role in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.

The politically explosive move comes just three days after Trump announced he is running for the White House yet again, despite a disappointing Republican performance in the midterm elections, especially among candidates backed by the ex-president.

………

Garland named Jack Smith, a veteran prosecutor and top former justice department official, to oversee the investigations into Trump as the justice department examines his role in retaining classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence and in the effort to subvert the 2020 election.

………

Trump predictably attacked the move within hours, and complained about an “appalling decision today by the egregiously corrupt Biden administration” at a black-tie event Friday night after earlier telling Fox News’s digital arm: “It is not acceptable. It is so unfair. It is so political.”

I am using Trump's tears to season my soup.

………

But it was to allay those concerns, Garland said at the news conference, that he chose to appoint Smith to run the investigations. “Appointing a special counsel at this time is the right thing to do,” Garland said. “The extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it.”

………

At the US attorney’s office in Brooklyn, Smith helped prosecute a police brutality case that drew national attention and, in the 1970s, [sic, it was actually the 1990s, but fraud investigations of Trump are routing events] investigated Trump over possible fraud charges in a six-month inquiry that ended without charges.

Smith was also briefly involved in the prosecution of a CIA agent for disclosing national defense information and obstructing justice – crimes that echo potential charges against Trump, according to the warrant used by the FBI to search Mar-a-lago.

In a statement released by the justice department, Smith said: “I intend to conduct the assigned investigations, and any prosecutions that may result from them, independently and in the best traditions of the Department of Justice.

………

The appointment of a special counsel could indicate that the justice department has already accumulated substantial evidence of potential criminality by Trump and his allies, said Barbara McQuade, University of Michigan law school professor and former US attorney.

Your mouth to God's ears.

………

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said Biden had not been given any advance notice of Garland’s announcement. “No, he was not aware, we were not aware,” she said at a delayed press briefing. “The department of justice makes decisions about criminal investigations independently. We are not involved.”

I still don't expect to see Trump in the dock, but I can dream.

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