Justice is delayed as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

I was on the Amtrak train headed home from New York on Friday afternoon when my phone started lighting up.

The first text is succinct: “Fuck Merrick Garland. What a cowardly reminder. Oh, no. I wondered what now. Has the attorney general closed the criminal investigation into Donald Trump gathering sensitive national security documents at Mar-a-Lago?

Then the details appeared on the screen.

Garland launched a special plan to get the former president’s federal criminal records, as well as Mar-a-Lago documents and Trump’s role in interfering with the 2020 election and before January 6th. Pure I exhaled; there was no decline. But then my heart dropped anyway. This is not a decline, but a completely necessary delay that could jeopardize the cases against Trump.

If you have followed my writing about the attorney-general, you will know that I was constantly of two minds about him, at first skeptical, but beginning with faith. On the train I thought, “Where was that bold attorney general I wondered three months ago hours after Mar-a-Lago?” It was with shock and trembling that I described myself here. In MonthlyI also tried Serta’s white crime-tide torque wrenches. But in my first days in office, I was furious at the Justice Department’s slow response to everything from the evidence unearthed by Robert Mueller to Garland’s adherence to Bill Barr’s plan to defame the defamation suit against Trump, brought by a friend of mine. E. Jean Carroll.

In particular, I felt let down by the plan. The forerunners to special counsel were special prosecutors, a status created by the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 in response to the Watergate scandals. The statute’s creation of a special prosecutor by a three-judge panel established after a request by the attorney general is meant to insulate the Justice from politics at work and appearance. In 1983, the law was amended, also changing the name of the prosecutor to “independent council”. But too much freedom has led special prosecutor Kenneth Starr to publicly release a small and scathing report investigating Bill Clinton’s intimate relationship with Monica Lewinsky. In response, after the independent counsel law passed, the special counsel regulations were rolled back, designed to give the attorney general more power and the special counsel somewhat less independence. It took a nanosecond for Team Trump to call Garland’s appointment as a special counsel a “political stunt.” In today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere, there is no such thing as politics.

Until that sad moment on the train, I fully expected Donald Trump’s Department of Justice to make an announcement in connection with the stolen documents earlier and next month. I believed that future charges would be filed for national defense information (espionage), obstruction, and concealment of public records. These are the offenses identified in the Mar-a-Lago search request. And, as to the sedition, I believed at one time in the first year following, that, added to the 6th of January, it might be related to a conspiracy to defraud the United States, an obstruction of the proceeding of the Congress, and perhaps a seditious conspiracy. I said so in an interview with Matthew Cooper, published here in mid-August.

But now this difficult, unelected appointment of the special counsel has focused all my thoughts – Garland justified the unexpected news of Donald Trump announcing his campaign for the presidency. It meant declaring that Trump had done what he had hoped his petition would do – delay or derail federal impeachment. Garland cites President Joe Biden’s latest comments about running for re-election as another reason to strike the special counsel. But the now-octogenarian president has said the same since he was inaugurated, that he intends to run, but has not made a definitive decision.

While Biden and Trump’s 2024 plans were likely to be cited as reasons for a special nomination plan, Garland turned to the breach when he said there would be no delay in the nomination. But that is not credible. If the investigation had the appearance of politics and merited a special counsel, surely the special counsel should review all the accumulated evidence, assess the FBI and DOJ personnel working on the case, and perhaps do some of it again.

Isn’t the special plan, at least necessary, to hire a new team of managers? Can I find an office space? Secure dedicated FBI agents? Manage off-demand computers and phones? Do you swear in the new grand jury?

Everyone wants and needs time. The last special counsel investigation of Trump lasted nearly two years from nomination to official report. And we still haven’t seen Mueller’s full report. Worse, the report makes a clear impression on the accusation of interference, but both Barr and Garland ignored it. Why wouldn’t the attorney general ignore this as well?

Two years is a very long time. In November 2024, we will have a president-elect, perhaps Trump himself, who once in office could toss this investigation into the dustbin as he can with the House Republican Committee on February 6th for the first time. What about the office of legal counsel of record, which prohibits the indictment of a resident president, should careerists in the Trump DOJ attempt to harass or indict or try? but that he had indulged himself even in that magistrate.

Don’t be put off by the delay, there’s some legalese on offer in the Twittersphere. It could be a delay of months, not years. Besides, Garland doesn’t just know what he’s doing. He plays three dimensional chess, they wrote. Perhaps, but the delay brings an uncertain and more serious adversary than a supercomputer. Witnesses may change their minds, leave their country, or even die. Unknown unknowns lurk.

Then another tweet of hopeful friends. “There’s no need for Garland to set up a special plan unless you’re going to list it.” That also seems unlikely: why do you name a special counsel, if you are excluded from the prosecution? I withheld my judgment until I found out who he had chosen.

A man named Jack Smith. A respected, hard-working attorney who heads the DOJ’s public integrity unit and previously directed an international war crimes investigation at the Hague Criminal Court.

Praised as a fearless prosecutor for tough cases, Smith has a sterling resume but has been tarnished by losing some high-profile cases. In 2014, the unit lost campaign finance against former presidential candidate John Edwards.

When his team indicted former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell on public corruption charges in 2014, it only resulted in a brief conviction. The consensus of all the Court – that you do not often see that the conviction of the president of the republic is empty. As I wrote in Oh, great moneyMcDonnell was not identified under the main federal bribery law (which was a state, not federal, official). It is agreed, however, to refer to the method of prosecution, which is of great importance to the law in interpreting the crimes themselves. As a result, McDonnell’s plan not only cleared the president but continues to make it difficult to prosecute federal officials.

The other cases are equally disposed. Environmental attorneys won’t win lawsuit against Senator Bob Menendez. After the jury was hung in late 2017, the DOJ considered a retrial. But before that happened, a judge acquitted the New Caesars Democrat of many charges. After eight days, the Justice Department dropped the case altogether. It deceives. And yet, on the other hand, he was clearly not afraid to bring tough situations to him.

While I was wondering whether Smith was a good choice or a bad one, a new message popped up on my phone. “What do you think of the appointment of a special prosecutor?” a law professor friend asked via Facebook Traveler.

yet I did not return to her. But here is my answer: It is proven in the prosecution, and Merrick Garland winked.

All eyes must now be on the investigation in Fulton County, Georgia, into the efforts of Trump and his acolytes like Rudy Giuliani and Lindsey Graham to defeat and overthrow Republican Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Biden in the state. 2020 election. Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, showed courage and motivation in the 2014 prosecutor’s office, taking on a colorful and politically dangerous case of fraud in the Atlanta public schools. Willis cleverly used the state’s Racketeering laws to sway witnesses and successfully prosecuted 11 out of 12 defendants. In January 2021, Willis was sworn in as the new DA after six terms. He put his hand on the Bible just a day after Trump called Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes. Like mine Monthly colleague Margaret Carlson put it: “The Howard University grad is Donald’s foreigner: a black woman with a grand jury.” Pay attention to Willis. Attorney General Garland seems to have had his own convictions, and not to hesitate in the manner of Hamlet.