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  Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith

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Temple
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Temple


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PostSubject: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 6:52 pm

11-18-2022

Appointment of highly regarded special counsel Jack Smith
viewed as sign Trump is in legal jeopardy.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday named longtime federal prosecutor Jack Smith special counsel to oversee two Justice Department probes of Donald Trump and determine whether he should be indicted.

Smith will now oversee two ongoing federal investigations into Trump's involvement in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and his storage of highly sensitive materials at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

Smith is a veteran of navigating highly charged situations.
He has overseen war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court,
led the Justice Department's public integrity unit, been appointed the first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee,
and, most recently, served as a war crimes prosecutor
at The Hague.

In fact, Garland said Smith was flying back from that post to accept his appointment as special counsel.

Jack Smith, is someone with incredible credentials, an incredible reputation, you didn't pull him out of The Hague to do this work unless you think there is a very high likelihood that one of these cases is going to result in charges.

The appointment of highly regarded special counsel Jack Smith is viewed as a sign Trump is in legal jeopardy



Last edited by Temple on Sat Nov 19, 2022 5:16 pm; edited 1 time in total
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The Wise And Powerful
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PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 7:09 pm

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oliver clotheshoffe
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 7:18 pm

Merrick Garland and Jack Smith... sounds like a couple bottles of booze you'd get on Christmas.
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Grackle

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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 8:16 pm

Yea, Obi had already posted all that in the Mar-a-logo thread... Oh but that's right, Temple doesn't read what's been posted.. he just starts new threads with what he finds cuz he thinks it has priority over anything else posted, even though it's the same thing.. Just more of his self importance and ignorance... Anyway
... Democrats investigated 1/6 for almost 2 years.. It's likely they had a team or *teams* of investigators on it ....all the while the dems and their media distracted the public, fixating on it and repeating their "inserection" rhetoric over and over (and over)

Democrats gathered every detail the investigators could dig up... witnesses, statements, videos, and made a prime time TV series out of it
.... But *now* they've hired a special council, who will have his own team of investigators... to *again* investigate 1/6 and and further exaggerate the "threat to our democracy" and hopefully find yet other/more ways they can blame Trump, which is really just another attempt to prevent him from running for president

... I hafta wonder how much this is all costing taxpayers, not to mention democrats not doing their actual jobs while they've been digging up dirt and getting their TV show together.. Now a special council investigation will cost tens of million$...and if it's anything like the Mueller and Durham "probes" it will just be another DUD .. mulling over all the shit everyone already knew ..and how long will this one take? .. Probably until just before the 2024 election would be my guess
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Grackle

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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 8:34 pm

Oh, and the documents from Mar-a-logo ... What's to investigate? .. They've had the documents as well as Trump's personal shit, and probably Malania's underwear .. WTF are they gonna investigate?... The DOJ and FBI can't determine if Trump broke the law? ..They don't know what they're looking at?... What?

.. Word from the left is that he had documents to nuclear bombs..codes to detonate them or some shit.. Only thing they don't know is if he planned to sell them or blow up the fuk'n world
... So let's hear some more from the left about misinformation
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Temple
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 8:51 pm

Grackle wrote:
Yea, Obi had already posted all that in the Mar-a-logo thread...

My subject is not a Mar-a-logo thread..
It is new-
---Special Counsel---  and Jack Smith overseeing ..
of  two Justice Department probes.
The ongoing federal investigation of Jan. 6 attack
on the Capitol..


The investigations to determine if
trump should be indicted..
It is above and now moved on from a Mar-a-logo search..
It is now about the -- Special Counsel -- investigation of both-

Merrick Garland on Friday named longtime federal prosecutor Jack Smith special counsel to oversee two Justice Department probes of Donald Trump and determine whether he should be indicted.

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Grackle

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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 9:50 pm

Listen up, Rerun .. I know WTF your post is .. and my comprehension is excellent, unlike your's or lack thereof

... I pointed out that you posted/started another thread with the same thing that was already posted in the Mar-a-logo thread...and you cluelessly decipher that as
Quote :
My subject is not a Mar-a-logo thread..

You fucking simpleton .. Show me where i wrote "your subject is a Mar-a-logo thread" ..or anything that remotely resembles that... Copy and paste it.. You can copy and paste
Quote :

It is new-
*sigh*.. You poor dumb bastid .. The point is that it was ALREADY POSTED IN ANOTHER THREAD .. I read it last night ... I didn't have time to reply to it, then tonight i see you've started your own thread with the same thing
... Obviously you didn't bother to look at the link Obi posted...on this thread..below your first post .. Where do you suppose that link might go? .. Take a guess ... I wouldn't expect you to go outta your way and tap a key to follow it.. just look at it... Gander, then scratch your empty skull and wonder
Quote :

---Special Counsel--- and Jack(/snip)

Holy shit! .. You're truly a blithering idiot .. . Go ahead and rehash your post again.. There's no confusion on my part what it's about ..but if you need to paste it here again on the same thread then go ahead... Shit, start another thread with it, Dumfuk
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Temple
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyFri Nov 18, 2022 11:12 pm

Grack, you are too old to comprehend,,
My brain is 30ih years younger than yours..
I have had to teach you and correct you, constantly..

My post is about the Special Counsel..
And who was brought in to prosecute the 2 investigations..
That is Jack Smith..
Not about Mar-a-logo old goings-

The MAJOR prosecution is the Jan 6 Insurrection..
It is to determine who will be or not be charged
for committing a criminal crime.
There could be a dozen or more people involved in the instruction.
It will wrap up a 10-month hearing..

The MINOR is the classified documents..
That is a slam-dunk, and to determine
if trump will be charged with a crime..

The Mar-a-logo thread has outlived its time..
It is now the prosecution of the deeds..
it has moved on to the Special Counsel for completion
and judgment of crime or not.

You were waving your dick all giggly that
Obi moved into the Mar-a-logo thread..
which is now irrelevant as all has moved
onward to the Special Council prosecution
for tieing up investigation and judgment
to charge or not to charge.

Special Counsel Prosecution is now the end game..

Now I have given you a good many lines
to quote and quote and quote and quote
to waste your time keeping you busy
replying your nonsense..sigh..

 
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The Wise And Powerful
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySat Nov 19, 2022 5:20 am

Temple, why I nominated you for KOFdom is anybody's guess at this point.

But you truly are an dolt. My guess it is due to your excessive use of pot.
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oliver clotheshoffe
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySat Nov 19, 2022 12:04 pm

Temple wrote:


My brain is 30ih years younger than yours..
 


Which means she has 30ih years more experience than you.
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Temple
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Temple


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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySat Nov 19, 2022 4:42 pm

The Wise And Powerful wrote:
Temple, why I nominated you for KOFdom is anybody's guess at this point.
But you truly are an dolt. My guess it is due to your excessive use of pot.

Obi, I luvs you too..
you adopted me 23 years ago, just like a son, heh yup...
lucky you! I ain't going nowhere, you need me- ahaa!

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Grackle

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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySat Nov 19, 2022 9:07 pm

Quote :

 My post is about the Special Counsel..
And who was brought in to prosecute the 2 investigations..
That is Jack Smith..
Not about Mar-a-logo old goings-

"Old goings"?... The special council was appointed to investigate it
Quote :

The MAJOR prosecution is the Jan 6 Insurrection..
Okay.. I'm sure the special councilor and his team will have your opinions in mind as they proceed
Quote :

It is to determine who will be or not be charged
for committing a criminal crime.
I suppose those "criminal crimes" would be more serious than say... "non criminal crimes" .. I'm admittedly confused about the difference(s) ..Maybe you can help to clarify
Quote :

There could be a dozen or more people involved in the instruction.
What instruction from whom?.. Who gave instructions to whom, about what?.. What am i missing?.. You're on top of this.. Explain
Quote :

It will wrap up a 10-month hearing..
To what hearing are you referring? .. The democrat investigation(s) and their TV show?.. Maybe you can elaborate...ha! ..as if!
Quote :

The MINOR is the classified documents..
That is a slam-dunk, and to determine
if trump will be charged with a crime..
I suppose you mean a "criminal crime" right?..heh .. If it's a "MINOR, slam dunk"
then why has a special councillor been appointed to investigate it?
Quote :

The Mar-a-logo thread has outlived its time..
It's not your place to decide which threads are "outlived"... The fact is that you pasted the same shit that was already on a thread that you claim is outlived... Starting a new thread with what has already been posted doesn't make it new and/or more significant.. It makes it redundant
Quote :

It is now the prosecution of the deeds..
it has moved on to the Special Counsel for completion and judgment of crime or not.
The appointment of a special council is not a prosecution and/or a judgement .. It's an investigation
Quote :

You were waving your dick all giggly that
Obi moved into the Mar-a-logo thread..
which is now irrelevant as all has moved
onward to the Special Council prosecution
for tieing up investigation and judgment
to charge or not to charge.
I'd hafta check, but i think it was a completely different topic where you started a new thread by pasting shit that was already in another thread
... Since Obi hasn't moved your rehashed crap with which you started THIS thread, then you're obviously confused, which is commonplace with you
Quote :

Special Counsel Prosecution is now the end game..
As i said.... A special council is not a prosecutor/prosecution... It's an investigation... If he was hired to prosecute they'd be in court
Quote :

Now I have given you a good many lines
to quote and quote and quote and quote
to waste your time keeping you busy
replying your nonsense..sigh..
Yea.. Responding to the tripe from the articles you paste here isn't nearly as amusing as the stupidity you pound out on your own.. Nobody appreciates it more than me.. Thanx.. Please continue to feel free


Last edited by Grackle on Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:38 am; edited 1 time in total
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Temple
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Temple


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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySun Nov 20, 2022 5:11 pm

11-19-2022

Trump beware:
Jack Smith won a major case in Europe for obstruction of justice and witness intimidation.

Special Prosecutor Jack Smith successfully convicted two high-profile figures from Kosovo in a case that might send some chills through MAGA world.

Smith was named by Attorney General Merrick Garland to take over two criminal investigations against Donald Trump.
He will draw attention to his long career in prosecution, but one needn’t go past last May to find a major success that might be right on point for the charges against Trump.

Dating back to the Mueller Report, Trump has been accused on multiple occasions of obstruction of justice – and witness tampering –
and while those accusations have not resulted in criminal charges, they’re an element of the ongoing probes against him regarding documents at mar-a-lago and the January 6 insurrection.

Smith has been a “Specialist Prosecutor” in the Hague, with“jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes under Kosovo law, according to the website of the Specialist Chambers.

In that role, Smith’s office last May obtained a guilty verdict for “obstructing official persons in performing official duties, intimidation during criminal proceedings and violating the secrecy of proceeding” against two former Kosovo Liberation Army leaders, Hysni Gucati
& Nasim Haradinaj.

Although not high on the U.S. radar, the outcome was
a substantial win in the arena of war crimes, as reported by Diplomat News in Europe.
And it demonstrated acuity in law that might be critical
if Trump were prosecuted.

Here’s how Smith was quoted at Diplomat News:

“Today justice was served. As stated by the Trial Panel today, the protection of witnesses from intimidation and harm lies at the very foundation of any system of criminal justice – the acts and conduct of the accused challenged that very foundation.”

“The acts and statements, in this case, took place in a climate of intimidation, as found today by the judges,” Mr. Smith continued.

“The Kosovo Specialist Chambers has a unique ability
to provide justice for victims because it represents a safe place where witnesses can speak openly about the crimes they saw and suffered through over 20 years ago.

“Intimidating or retaliating against such victims is, in my view, a gravely serious crime which strikes at the heart of this institution’s ability to do justice and the rule of law.
If you seek to intimidate or retaliate against witnesses of this Court,
I will do all that is in my power to assure you will ultimately find yourself brought to justice.”

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Grackle

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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyMon Nov 21, 2022 12:00 pm


Temple wrote:
You were waving your dick all giggly that
Obi moved into the Mar-a-logo thread..
which is now irrelevant as all has moved
onward to the Special Council
I replied;
Quote :

I'd hafta check, but i think it was a completely different topic where you started a new thread by pasting shit that was already in another thread
... Since Obi hasn't moved your rehashed crap with which you started THIS thread, then you're obviously confused
So I *did* check, and as always, you have no clue .. I found that your senseless drivel referred to an entirely different thread/topic still easily found on the board, titled "Biden's Dept Relief"
===================
Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:37 pm
by Grackle
.. Obi moved Temple's thread starter.. lol...He left his subject header intact so he should find his wanna-be thread starter ok Smile
====================
Hardly "swinging my dick around all giggly" but ok .. Maybe the "smile" emoji made you cranky Smile

You start new threads all the time on topics that are ongoing in existing threads ... It indicates that you're not reading or even bothering to keep up with what anyone posts...besides yourself of course .. There are only 3 posters here besides yourself and you continue to *spray* the board with thread starters as if you're in some kinda fuk'n competion to fill the board with fodder .. We know you hate Trump, republicans, right wingers.. It's not necessary to start new threads with every single article you find against them
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Temple
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyMon Nov 21, 2022 8:52 pm

11-19-2022

Special counsel Jack Smith has significant advantages over Robert Mueller:

The top prosecutor in Robert Mueller's investigation
of Donald Trump explained on Saturday why the new special counsel investigating Trump has significant advantages.

NYU Law Prof. Andrew Weissmann, who was Mueller's top deputy and the chief of the Criminal Fraud Section
of the Department of Justice (DOJ), weighed in on the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith.

"The new special counsel, unlike Special Counsel Mueller, will be able to indict Trump as he is no longer (president of the United States]
and will not have to worry about being fired from one day to the next by sitting POTUS,"
Weissmann explained.

"And he inherits a large amount of evidence and a team that is in place already," he noted.

"The new Special Counsel also will not have to overcome, as Special Counsel Mueller did, Trump's dangling presidential pardons to thwart cooperation
with the investigation," Weissmann wrote.
"Or using DOJ to stymie and misrepresent the investigation."

Weissmann, who has known the new special prosecutor for two decades, has previously said he expects Smith to move quickly.

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PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptySat Nov 26, 2022 11:34 am

Matt Whitaker: "I don't have any reason to believe there's enough evidence to indict President Trump."
Lacey Christ, Sat, November 26, 2022 at 7:16 AM

Just days after former President Donald Trump launched his third bid for the White House, the U.S. Department of Justice ramped up two investigations that may be the greatest impediments to his fight back to Pennsylvania Avenue.

Veteran prosecutor Jack Smith is heading both DOJ investigations as a special counsel, examining Trump’s role prior to the Jan. 6 riot and whether he retained sensitive documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago.

"If you're inciting a riot by saying go peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol, then, you know, we have turned the First Amendment upside down on its head," former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker told Fox News Digital. "I don't see that part of the investigation being of much concern or consequence to President Trump."

In response to the special counsel, Trump is echoing attacks he made during the Mueller probe from 2017 to 2019, now targeting Smith personally, telling Fox News Digital, "They found nothing, and now they take some guy who hates Trump. This is a disgrace and only happening because I am leading in every poll in both parties."

"We'll see if [Jack Smith] can use the discipline and the traditions of the Department of Justice and, you know, do his job really above the political fray," said Whitaker.

While Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the "extraordinary circumstances" of a Trump-Biden rematch escalated the urgency of the DOJ cases, Trump told Fox News Digital he would "not partake" in the DOJ probes.

But Whitaker says that the former president may be making a mistake.

"I would recommend if [Trump] asked me that he should take an active role in defending himself," Whitaker said. "The average citizen can't exert executive privilege, I think the president of the United States and, you know, certainly Donald Trump could, and I think that issue needs to be adjudicated. So I think there is a role for the special master."

"If I'm sitting in the shoes of somebody that needs to indict a case, I want to I want to know the why, I want to understand the motive, understand who's the victim and what damage has been done."

But Whitaker tells Fox News Digital that he disagrees with former Attorney General Bill Barr and believes the DOJ may not have the smoking gun to indict the former president.

And as the Trump legal battles intensify, the Biden administration is still struggling to get a grip on the crisis at the southern border.

On Monday, 15 states filed a motion to extend Title 42 explosions before the Dec. 21 deadline as Customs and Border Protection say an average of 2,693 migrants per day are evading apprehension.

"I don't expect that there's a legal justification for Title 42. There's certainly a political justification," Whitaker said. "This administration desperately wants it to continue in place no matter what they might say in court filings, because it's really about the only tool that they can use."

Whitaker also revealed that he met with cabinet members in the Biden administration to find solutions but those discussions went nowhere.

"I worked with the president and others in the cabinet and, you know, even the legislators to come up with a solution that addressed all these issues. I thought we were close in the meetings that we had, but ultimately nothing got done."
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 Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith Empty
PostSubject: Re: Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith    Merrick Garland Special Counsel and Jack Smith EmptyMon Nov 28, 2022 10:15 pm

Turning Point for Garland as Justice Dept. Grapples With Trump Inquiries
Glenn Thrush
Mon, November 28, 2022 at 5:55 AM

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland, a stoic former federal judge intent on restoring rule-of-law order at the Justice Department, gradually came to accept that he would need to appoint a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump if the former president ran for the White House again.

But that did not mean he liked doing it.

Garland made it clear from the start that he was not inclined to tap outsiders to run investigations and indicated that the department was perfectly capable of functioning as an impartial arbiter in the two criminal inquiries involving Trump, according to several people familiar with the situation.

But the appointment of a special counsel, Jack Smith, on Nov. 18, and a painstakingly planned rollout of the announcement, signaled a significant, if subtle, shift in that approach. Garland has shown a growing willingness to operate outside his comfort zone — within the confines of the rule book — in response to the extraordinary circumstance he now finds himself in: investigating Trump, a top contender for the 2024 nomination of a party that is increasingly rallying around the charge that Garland has weaponized the Justice Department against Republicans.

“There is a political dimension that can’t be ignored — this is an investigation that is being used by the target and his allies as a mobilization moment in a political campaign,” said Daniel C. Richman, a former federal prosecutor and a law professor at Columbia University. “That’s why you are seeing the department leaning forward in making these moves, and getting as much detailed information about an ongoing investigation out there as it can.”

In studying how to proceed, Garland has steered clear of issuing the unusual public statements favored by former FBI Director James Comey during the investigation of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails, believing that those actions, and political meddling during the Trump administration, violated department protocols.

The department’s leaders have, however, tried to counter Trump’s claims that they are engaged in a partisan witch hunt intended to destroy him.

Top officials, led by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, have leveraged Trump’s court challenges in the investigation into his handling of sensitive government documents as an opportunity to broadcast previously hidden details, while adhering to department policy.

The Justice Department did not officially support the effort to unseal the affidavit used to obtain the warrant for the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, in August. But when Trump’s lawyers did not oppose that bid, department officials seized the moment, and used the filing to offer a detailed timeline of Trump’s actions that established the public narrative of the case.

After Trump sought an independent review of documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, department lawyers discussed sharing several photographs of the seized records to provide visual proof that Trump had not fully complied with a subpoena in May that required the documents’ return, according to people familiar with the situation.

Garland did not object to the decision to release a single picture of the files, some bearing high-level classification markings, arrayed on the floor of Trump’s office — now the defining image of the investigation.

He cast the appointment of Smith as compulsory, dictated by the section of the regulation, derived from the law that defines the department’s authority, that allows an attorney general to install a special counsel under “extraordinary circumstances.”

Garland appears to view Smith as more of an internal decision-maker than a public buffer: The attorney general intends to follow the letter of the regulations, and will most likely accept Smith’s findings unless his conclusions are “inappropriate or unwarranted” under the department’s precedents, a person familiar with his thinking said.

Already, Garland is dealing with two comparable cases, both inherited from the Trump administration, and in each he has appeared inclined to abide by the decisions of the prosecutors overseeing the investigations.

Garland did not, for instance, overrule John Durham, appointed under Attorney General William Barr to investigate the FBI’s inquiry into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia, when he brought two criminal cases, now widely seen as flimsy, that resulted in acquittals. He has also kept an arm’s length from the investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter by a Trump appointee, David Weiss, the top federal prosecutor in Delaware, even though he rejected the idea of appointing a special counsel.

Smith, who once led the department’s public integrity unit, will oversee the day-to-day operations of the documents investigation, and of the investigation into Trump’s bid to cling to power after his electoral defeat in 2020. He will decide whether to prosecute, but Garland has the power to overrule the decision. He could also produce a report, which the attorney general could choose to make public.

Appointing a special counsel was briefly considered under a menu of options by prosecutors handling the case in the fall of 2021, when the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington began examining Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack, according to people familiar with the situation.

It was taken up more seriously after FBI agents searched Trump’s residence on Aug. 8, but Garland and his aides intensively discussed the option as the midterm elections neared. The final decision was prompted by Trump’s announcement this month that he planned to run again, and Biden’s suggestion that he would seek reelection.

Smith has been on the Justice Department’s radar for a while. One former official described him as a “golden unicorn” — a former prosecutor with three decades of experience investigating politicians and war criminals who is registered as an independent.

Another selling point: Smith’s time abroad during most of Trump’s administration. Since 2018, he has worked as a war crimes prosecutor in The Hague and can credibly claim to be approaching the investigations with an outsider’s perspective.

The appointment also merged two sprawling investigations, involving dozens of prosecutors operating on separate tracks, under a single supervisor, Smith.

Department officials emphasized that Smith would not start from scratch but would bring existing investigations to their conclusion and develop potential links between the two lines of inquiry.

The documents case appears to be proceeding more quickly than the Jan. 6 investigation. Public filings and interactions between law enforcement officials and defense lawyers indicate that a lot of work remains, and law enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation emphasized that the department was unlikely to sign off on charges unless it was convinced that it would prevail in court.

Evidence made public points to a case based on a section of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to mishandle closely held national defense information — and a potential obstruction of justice charge stemming from the former president’s refusal to comply with the subpoena in May.

“The obstruction charge looks more and more to be the most compelling charge for the government to bring,” said David H. Laufman, the former chief of the counterintelligence unit of the Justice Department, which is leading the Mar-a-Lago investigation.

One of the biggest questions Smith is likely to face is whether prosecutors would consider bringing only an obstruction case without addressing the underlying possibility of an Espionage Act violation. Some prosecutors see that as the most straightforward path to a prosecution. Garland’s announcement of a special counsel referred to obstruction three times.

If Smith’s appointment shifted operational responsibility for the investigation, it did little to take the pressure off Garland.

The appointment is likely to offer limited protection from a coming partisan siege. The new Republican majority in the House has pledged to investigate what it has described as the “politicization” of the Justice Department, including “the department’s unprecedented raid on President Trump’s residence.”

Trump wasted little time trying to undermine confidence in Smith’s impartiality after it was disclosed that his wife served as a producer on a Michelle Obama documentary and donated $2,000 to Biden’s 2020 campaign.

It is, at least, a familiar position for Garland: Few public figures have been so tempest-tossed by the politics of the moment, and few have tried so hard to rise above the hyperpartisan environment in Washington.

Senate Republicans blocked his nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016 in a brazen power play that helped Trump cement a conservative supermajority. Ron Klain, Biden’s chief of staff, backed his selection as attorney general in early 2021, believing Garland would be the best person to restore order at the Justice Department after the Trump administration.

For his part, Biden believed Garland deserved an important position after the Supreme Court debacle, as did several key Republicans, ensuring his confirmation.

Other factors might have played a part in his selection, according to several Democratic aides. Political advisers to Biden believed that picking someone with whom the incoming president had a closer relationship, like former Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, would be seen by critics as an attempt to control the department’s long-running investigation of Hunter Biden.

In public, Garland has forcefully rejected suggestions that external political forces have influenced any of his decisions, and he has gone to extremes to avoid the slightest appearance of partisanship.

In October, he initially pulled out of a convention of police chiefs in Dallas when his staff flagged concerns that it could be interpreted as a violation of his ban on political speech in an election year, according to a person involved in organizing the event. He eventually attended, but only after his aides gathered new facts about the event that led them to reconsider.

Garland’s critics on the left have also expressed concerns about Smith’s appointment, contending it would delay a decision on the cases until after the 2024 campaign.

Garland resisted that characterization, and Smith, who is recovering from a knee injury in the Netherlands, issued an even more emphatic statement, saying that the “pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch.”

If the rollout seemed to outsiders like a typically scripted statement, it was seen by the attorney general’s allies as a sign, albeit a modest one, that he is willing to make adjustments to confront the challenges ahead.

Garland waited three days before delivering a brief public explanation for the search of Trump’s Florida estate in August, giving the former president’s supporters time to spread vitriol and conspiracy theories.

When he appeared before cameras to announce Smith’s appointment three months later, he seemed determined not to repeat the delay, offering a far more expansive statement an hour after he had signed the order.

“Appointing a special counsel here is the right thing to do,” Garland said.

© 2022 The New York Times Company
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