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The full impact of former President Trump’s decision to again seek the presidency became clear for the first time on Friday — but not in the way Trump wanted.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to helm two big investigations surrounding Trump — one pertaining to attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the other into the handling of sensitive documents that ended up at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Garland has appointed career prosecutor Jack Smith to the role. The attorney general insisted the decision “will not slow the completion of these investigations.”
More importantly from a political standpoint, Garland made clear that Trump’s entry into the 2024 presidential race was the key catalyst for his decision.
“It is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution based on some developments,” Garland said during an afternoon news conference, at which he took no questions.
Those developments, he added, included, “the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well.”
Garland, whose 2016 nomination to the Supreme Court was halted by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), is realistic enough to know there is no possibility of his decision quietening the claims from Trump loyalists that the investigations are partisan witch hunts.
But he is at least hoping to preserve respect for the Department of Justice with the broader public at a time when it is under fire from a new Republican majority soon to take control of the House of Representatives.
