Well, Mr.
Trump is giving every indication
he intends to ignore
the new special counsel,
calling him, quote, super radical left.
And even though the investigations
have been going on for months,
the former
president acted
surprised that they are still
very active.
Here's what he told
a crowd on Friday
night at his Florida resort
a weaponized Department of Justice.
Would you like me to talk about that?
Larry, would you like me to talk about
this horrendous abuse of power
is the latest
in a long series of witch hunts
started a long time ago.
I thought the investigation
with the document hoax
was dying or dead or over.
And the investigation into January six
and my very peaceful
and patriotic speech
remember peaceful and patriotically
was dead, especially after the record
setting 40 point
loss of Liz Cheney
in the great state of Wyoming.
I thought it was dead.
I thought that
put the final nail in the coffin,
only to find out
that the corrupt
and highly political Justice Department
just appointed a super radical left
special counsel,
better referred
to as a special prosecutor,
to start the process all over again.
We thought it was just about dead
Jessica Levinson is a
professor of law
at Loyola Law School and joins me now
from Los Angeles.
She is also the host
of The Passing Judgment Podcast.
So good to see you.
How will this impact Mr.
Trump's campaign to run for president?
I actually don't know
that it's
going to impact
the campaign
that much
because we've already seen the former
president say
all of
this is illegitimate,
the investigations are illegitimate.
Any sort of indictment,
he'll say,
is also just a political witch hunt.
So the decision
to appoint a special counsel,
I think it's important
for the Department of Justice.
It's important for people
who believe in the rule of law
and the independence
of the Department of Justice.
But for the former president
and his campaign, he's
just going to keep feeding people
the same diet of disinformation
and say there's no there there.
But why bring in a special counsel
right now?
Why not allow the DOJ
to move forward with its investigations?
I think because two things have happened.
One, the midterms are now over.
And two,
the former
president has said,
I am a candidate for the presidency.
Again,
And so what we see here is potentially
another matchup
between President Biden
and former President Trump.
And we have an attorney general
who was appointed by one of those
two men, obviously,
who was appointed by President Biden.
So, well,
the Department of Justice is independent.
What I think
Merrick Garland recognized today
is that
he doesn't want it
to look like a political appointee
of one of the candidates.
President Biden
is just trying to take down
the other candidate,
former President Trump.
The other thing
is this actually insulates
Attorney General Merrick Garland
a little bit, because now that House
Republicans will be in control,
they're going to have a lot of hearings
about these investigations.
And if he has a special counsel,
he can say, you know what,
I'm not involved
in these investigations anymore.
I can't answer your questions.
So I think there are really
a number of reasons
why this is the timing that he chose.
Now, talk to us a little bit
about the counsel.
Who is the counsel
what can you tell us about Mr.
Jack Smith?
So he is a former federal prosecutor.
And I think at this point,
people are so used to hearing
former federal prosecutor,
that means he worked
in the Department of Justice.
And it would be very surprising
to have somebody
without that baseline experience.
But we also know that he has experience
in the public in Hegarty
unit dealing
with public corruption crimes.
I think that's really significant.
The other significant thing here
is that he's actually been
abroad, working
the International Criminal Court
dealing with things
like war crimes,
also corruption and investigations
and charges
against former government
officials of foreign states.
That's about as close to the experience
of investigating a former president
as you can possibly get.
So you think for those reasons,
this particular decision
makes a lot of sense
And what investigations
is this special counsel
going to be overseeing?
Yeah, great. Great question.
The special counsel
is going to be looking
at the
two investigations
involving the former president
on the federal level.
And so the first investigation involves
the activities around January
six, 20, 21, and specifically
whether or not the former
president could be guilty
of something like defrauding
the United States
by trying to thwart the peaceful
transfer of power
and stopping Congress from doing its duty
that day,
which was certifying
Electoral College votes.
The other thing they're looking at
is the Mar a Lago investigation
related to the former president
apparently illegally retaining documents
that were classified
and highly sensitive.
These are very different investigations.
But the special counsel will be
overseeing both of them.
And talk to us a little
bit about the time frame.
What's the timeline for this?
So we don't know a specific timeline,
and that's entirely normal.
We would never know a timeline
until there are filings in court.
And that leaves us some breadcrumbs
about figuring out
how close are they to
a potential indictment.
One thing to note
is that
in terms of the timeline,
to kind of zoom out for a little bit,
the fact that a special counsel
was appointed at all
for both of these investigations
indicates
that they are very much live and ongoing
and could potentially lead to indictments
if both of these investigations
were winding
down were in their end stages.
There really is no point
for taking this historic step
and appointing a special counsel.
But I think it indicates
not exactly where we are
in the timeline,
but these are very real investigations
and that there is a they're there
maybe not an indictment,
but there is certainly something
they're looking at in
both of these cases.