you've got jack smith working in europe at the hague. what are the chances that he makes the left decision that he wants to drop everything he's doing there to fly back to the united states, to look at a bunch of investigative material and met investigations of donald trump to conclude that there is no reason to proceed with prosecution there. >> look, if you mean has he taken the case only because he's concluded that he'll indict, i don't think that's right. the evidence is very strong. i commend, by the, way the just security memo by andrew and ryan goodman, and others. but i think what he says, i'm going to give it a true look and i'll be ready to say no indictment if that's where the facts and law leads, he means that. on the other hand, the excitement of the appointment, and he's someone who's been everywhere in the doj, also the international community, also state da's office, is for going forward and prosecuting. so i think he would relish that prospect. i don't think he is prejudged and said, i'm flying back because i know we're

because of jack smith's appointment. and because jack smith doesn't have the entire justice department to manage all day long. jack smith will be able to make much faster prosecutorial decisions that merrick garland could make. we will have much more on the appointment of special counsel jack smith, a harvard law professor joins us later in this hour. professor tribe will also conserve the implications of the latest scandal at the united states supreme court, and institution that has been scandal free for most of its life, and has now been corrupted by the dark money, dark money influences, so masterfully identified and tracked by our first guest tonight, senator sheldon whitehouse. the new york times wrote the story about the latest scandal at the supreme court this weekend, and identified supreme court justice samuel alito and his wife as suspects number one and two in the possible leaking of a supreme court opinion, eight years ago in 2014. that opinion, like the supreme court opinion leaked earlier this year, overtur

of special counsel jack smith. i will read it in its entirety. because it is fairly prefer. he says, 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 pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. i will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigation forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictates. clearly from the wording there several times indicating that he wants to get this moving right now, lisa. >> absolutely. and between garland's speech and what jack smith has said, there is definitely an emphasis on rapidity and speed. and so i'm glad to see that. i also agree with barb that this is not going to be an operation where you have to collect resumes and hire a bunch of people from the outset. maybe he hires a couple of people to staff directly, but merrick garland made it very clear, he has the utmost of confidence of

smith, who he referred to as this fully weaponized monster jack smith. those were donald trump's words. in a written statement, donald trump addressed both cases that jack smith is now supervising saying, i did nothing wrong on january 6th. jack smith is now the special counsel supervising the justice department's investigation of donald trump's possible criminal conduct on january 6th and donald trump's possible criminal conduct in possessing government documents including classified documents at his florida residence. in his written confession today, donald trump actually said, when will you invade the other presidents homes in search of documents, which are voluminous, which they took with them, but not nearly so openly and transparently as i did? and there it is. i did. meaning, i did commit the crime of taking government documents with me and i did commit the crime of refusing to hand over those government documents and lying about their existence when they were subpoenaed. that's what donald trump put in writing today. i did. attorney general merri

let's start with jack smith, for a moment. he will oversee both investigations, even though they are not technically related. some may question, whether that is a significant caseload. those two sprawling investigations. does that make sense to you, or were you surprised by that decision? >> i think that merrick garland, and their first investigation is whether they will be unlawful interference is the transfer of presidential power, or the certification of votes in the 2020 election. that is the investigation that may have driven this decision more than the mar-a-lago investigation. that one, inherently, more political by nature. we are talking about investigating a former president, while running for president, against the incumbent president, who ran against him the last time. in terms of the extraordinary circumstances, particularly created when president trump announced former president trump would be running, they are part of what drove this. so, i think, once doing it, having jack smith, also, be council for the mar-a-l

jack smith is a great choice for a couple of reasons. one of them is he was called in to run public integrity, a pretty tense office, in the department of justice, in the wake of an unbelievable scandal that led to prosecutors being basically driven out of their jobs because they withheld information, important information, in their prosecution of senator, republican senator ted stevens, so he took over a hot shop and a hot mess, and i think it is interesting that office continued to plunge forward into contentious controversial cases under his watch. so when he signaled in his statement that he's not going to pause or flag, you get the feeling that the case that's teed up in mar-a-lago may move very, very quickly, and the elements of the january 6th investigation, that conspiracy, that is much more complicated, it is going to move on pace, with some rapidity, but probably with not any direct action that we see on the surface for a little while. >> carol leonig, thank you. vaughn hillyard, you're joining us as well. walk us through your

of course we'll learn more about jack smith in the coming hours. let's go back now to our panel. >> we have evan. we have jessica schneider and elie honig. elie, your thoughts? >> so, when we talk about the career non-political prosecutor, jack smith appears to be the very model of that notion. he has worked, as you said, for decades as a state and federal prosecutor and as a war crimes prosecutor. there's no political leaning one way or the other. this is really what the justice department typically -- the vast majority of federal prosecutors at the justice department are. they are not political actors. they are not political appointees. they are people who just come in and do the job and do the work. and jack smith, by all appearances, has done that for many, many years now. now, he is going to have the first say. he is going to have to get up to speed on this investigation. it's going to take him some time. but it is a well-developed investigation. he's not starting from square one. and he will ultimately have at least the initial call on, do we

jack smith will pick up where that has been and add to it. continue the investigation from there, but he noted we were in such a unique situation. not only do you have the former president announcing his candidacy, that pushed this, and the current president intends to be a candidate too, he felt in his judgment a special counsel. >> sandra: great to get your immediate reaction, and jonathan turley and gerry baker. >> smith is a solid appointment, i don't think you will find many critics. a great deal of experience across the board from public integrity to international cases. it is interesting. the attorney general referred to obstruction a couple of times. that's really where the greatest concern probably will lie for the trump team. i mean, the scope of this is going to contain both the january 6th riot and the election as well as mar-a-lago. as i said earlier, we still have not seen a very strong basis for any criminal charges linked to the january 6th riot. mar-a-lago, the past cases, even the most agregious cases, have resulted in relat

but i do want to talk to you about jack smith, jack smith is a very mellow, very common name, but not a common job. what is it about jack smith that actually he would have some confidence, danny, that he is the guy for this job? he is the right man to put on the hats, as special counsel, to go after donald trump. former president of the united states? >> but katy, you know, this jacques myth is that classic doj glistening resume, x specially pedal greed. i believe. has done everything, he's worked in public integrity, he is prosecuted corruption, he has, he has done it all. so, this is of course a small choice, but most of the lawyers and doj are pretty impressive folks, and he is no exception. he's got experience prosecuting organizations, and i think that is key in this decision, he's been a lifelong prosecutor, although he spent a little time in the private sector, look, he is an impressive person, no question. he is qualified enough to lead this investigation so, yeah, is this ultimately, just cover for merrick, garland? i think you might be on to something there but look, it's sp

today, i signed an order appointing jack smith to serve as special counsel. the order authorizes him to continue the ongoing investigation into both of the matters i have just described and to prosecute any federal crimes that may arise from those investigations. mr. smith is a veteran career prosecutor. he began his career in 1994 as an assistant district attorney with the new york county d.a.'s office. in 1999, he became an assistant u.s. attorney for the eastern district of new york where over the course of nine years he prosecuted matters ranging from gang murders of police officers to civil rights violations. he served with the international criminal court where he supervised war crimes investigations. in 2010, mr. smith returned to the justice department to serve as chief of the public integrity section where he led a team of more than 30 prosecutors who handled public corruption and election crimes across the united states. in 2015, he served as the first assistant u.s. attorney for the middle district of tennessee, later becoming the acting united sta

attorney jack smith as special counsel. smith is a career prosecutor who currently serves as the chief prosecutor for the special court of the hague where he investigated war crimes. garland said the appointment will not slow down the pace of the investigations which cnn has learned have ramped up here in recent weeks with prosecutors in both cases sending out multiple new subpoenas to witnesses. donald trump is also dismissing the appointment of the special counsel. moments ago, called the move unfair and political. paula reid reports on what would expect from the new special counsel and what his appointment means for the former president. >> in certain extraordinary cases it's in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution. >> reporter: merrick garland naming former justice department official jack smith to independently head up two major criminal investigations focused on former president trump. the move coming days after trump announced his third run for p

who is jack smith? was he currently up until this announcement worked as a war crime prosecutor at the international criminal court at the hague. so now he is d. c bound where he has about 3 decades of experience working in the u. s. capital, he led the department of justice of public integrity section in the tooth, 20 ten's winning high profile convictions of corrupt politicians, who were republican and democrats. and that may be one of the key qualifiers which made him an attractive candidate for this pick. because this is someone who people will have described as a political by the book, a consummate professional. now what will smith do? well, he will immediately take over the oversight of these 2 federal criminal investigations into the former president, which includes trumps alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his transfer and retention of classified documents that may have endangered national security to his private home. after he left the office, oh, let's not seem to c

he appointed a gentleman named jack smith. now, for openers, everybody that is a war crimes prosecutor at this has shown a special kind of determination to write some of our world's most egregious wrongs. but this is what i love about jack smith's resume. so, he was a longtime federal prosecutor, and he was out of the public integrity section under the department of justice. under his tenure there, you know who his office prosecuted? these are prosecutions that he authorized. representative rick rienzi, a republican from arizona, senator john edwards, a democrat from north carolina, governor bob mcdonald, a republican from virginia, senator bob menendez, a democrat from new york. we see a pattern emerge in. republicans and democrats alike. and you know what? his unit, they won some of those cases, and lost some of those cases. but what can we tease out of the way that he operates? he is willing to go after people left, right, and center. he is willing to take challenging cases, cases that are not short winners, and cases that

jack smith now or merrick garland? >> well, jack smith makes the initial decision, and merrick garland decides whether he agrees with him or not. if he doesn't agree with hem, then he has to let congress know which is a little different than the typical decision made by the attorney general. it's more transparent. >> doesn't this remove the nuance of considering the implication of a former president indicted running for president? when you sort of contrast this out as jack smith, jack smith is looking at it simply was there a violation of law and can i prove it, not the bigger picture issues? >> i think it's fair to say that jack smith is less likely to put as much weight on those concerns as merrick garland. merrick garland was a jump for 22 years, you know, somebody who spent much of his career looking at both sides, very careful, deliberate, versus a career prosecutor, right? counsel robert mueller, famously gave a lot of deference and, you know, showed a lot of restraint towards the former president. so we'll see w

today, i signed an order appointing jack smith to serve as special counsel. the order authorizes him to continue the ongoing investigation into both of the matters that i have just described and to prosecute any federal crimes that may arise from those investigations. mr. smith is a veteran career prosecutor. he began as -- he began his career 1994 as an assistant district attorney with the new york county das office. in 1999, he became an assistant u.s. attorney for the eastern district of new york, were over the course of nine years, he prosecuted matters ranging from gaining murders of police officers to civil-rights violations. from 2008 to 2010, he served at the international criminal court , where he supervised work harms -- were -- war crime investigations. he returned to the justice department to service chief of the public integrity session he led a team of more than 30 prosecutors, who handle public corruption across the united states. in 2015, he agreed to service the first assistant u.s. attorney for the middle district of tennessee. later, becomi

it doesn't matter if it's jack smith. it doesn't matter if it's trump's own vice president, as we sadly learned two years ago. >> you know, and exactly. very well said. i know you have to go. i really appreciate you making some time to make those very, very important points. thank you very much, sir. really appreciate you. come back any time. and jill, i'm going to go to you on the point neil just made. merrick garland makes this decision, sort of trying to make it sound apolitical. number one, there is an investigation of hunter biden that's floating around there. doesn't that mean that any investigation that involves anyone named biden also needs to go to special counsel, number one? and number two, this is how republicans are reacting. ted cruz tweeting, joe biden is completely weaponizing the department of justice to attack his political opponents. and then you have marjorie greene, impeach merrick garland, which she's been saying before this and she's still saying it. he got nothing. and now republicans are trying to

you have a new special counsel, jack smith. what else changes? i want to read from your reporting, prosecutors who work under smith haven't made widespread changes to their schedule in the next few weeks of taking witness testimony, or documents with subpoenas. take us inside, a new boss, what else changes, if anything? >> he's communicating with them. he's still in the netherlands where he's recovering from knee surgery. so he's not here to lead the teams but he's already communicating with them that he wants to make sure that the activity and a lot of it, you know, was picking up certainly after the election, the grand jury activity we know people were getting subpoenas, we know witness testimony and so on was being scheduled and, of course, today's hearing is going ahead without any interruption. so those are the signs that he is trying to make clear to the teams that, you know, just because you have a new person overseeing everything i'm going to get up to speed but everything should continue as it was going along. john, how long that continu

now jack smith is going to take over a difficult job. he doesn't have to start these investigations from scratch, but he does have to get caught up to speed. he is going to be looking into whether trump committed crimes in his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and whether he should be indicted for taking national security sensitive documents to mar logo after he left office. and whether he tried to obstruct that investigation. and there is a lot of pressure for speed here for the special counsel to charge forward given that as we approach 2024. and as trump has just announced that he is going to run for a 3rd time. at the closer we come to that date, the more political this investigation will appear in it is that appearance of conflict of interest that the department of justice so wants to avoid high desert hester there with all the latest forth from washington d. c. thanks so much heidi. well, meanwhile, donald trump could be making a return to twitter. the social platforms, new boss, ill on mosque is conducting a pole

now, jack smith is less of a politically known person in washington. he has worked in washington before, he has dealt with and been in a decisionmaking role in some very significant political investigations, public integrity unit investigations from the justice department. i've just been hearing that he was in some of the top meetings whenever there were charging decisions being considered against the former governor of virginia, bob mcdonnell. but really he has not been operating in washington the way that mueller had been as the fbi director. but he will at the end of this have to produce a final report and make very extensive, significant decisions in the same way mueller and his team would have had to around what to do with a president, in the case the foermer president. >> shan wu, how much confidence do you have in jack smith? >> oh, lots of confidence in the man, very good reputation. he is walking into a historically unprecedented firestorm. he might want to consider keeping his office in the netherlands, frankly. he's very competent, very expe

. >> garland appointed jack smith, right there on your screen, i wore crimes prosecutor at the hague and the former chief of the justice department's public integrity section his. job there was setting up corruption and election investigation. no surprise he's already criticizing the special counsel 's appointment, urging republicans to fight back against it. but there is some optimism tonight among those who tried to hold trump accountable in the past. here's what democratic congressman eric swalwell had to say. >> i do believe that we will reach a crescendo that brings accountability to donald trump, but lasting accountability, accountability that survives a jury and the appellate system means that they were able to do their job with independents and nothing else, and i think that's where we're headed right now, and i really do welcome it. our own candle lanny and has more. >> jack smith will supervise the investigation into classified documents taken to trump's mar-a-lago compound, and whether there was obstruction of justice. he will also oversee the january six probe into effort

we have a live report on what's happening in that courtroom and what jack smith, not confused with the special master, says about doj's filing. also in georgia in a separate, but still related investigation, lindsey graham finally sat in front of a grand jury to testify about donald trump's alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election down there. reporting on his more than two hours of testimony in just a moment. and finally, another separate but again still related case regarding 2020 is about to wrap up. the oath keepers trial is in the hands of the jury and we're on verdict watch. stewart rhodes and four others are charged with seditious conspiracy among other crimes. we've got reporting and analysis on what the verdict will mean across the federal government. of course, what all of this, all of these investigations, all of the aftermath of the still unshakable hangover of 2020 means for the next two years in congress. the voters after all sent a message that they want order to the. did the majorities hear it? joining me now from washington, d.c. is ken dilanian and in fulton coun

so, how much control does merrick garland now seed over to jack smith? >> well technically merrick garland does retain control. if that statement is to be believed, he's going to leave all those decisions up to this particular special counsel. they almost surely will be not our main justice campuses. maybe they will be in a conference room many blocks away. they will be separate, walled off, maybe have people on their team who emerge from private practice and rejoin the government, just like mueller's team did. they will make every effort to make this as independent as they possibly can. again, nothing can remove the criticism that you never truly independent of the justice department. >> sadie, in a statement, jack smith, on his part, said that pace of the investigations will not pause or flag under my watch. i will exercise independent judgment, and remove the investigations forward expeditiously and thoroughly to whatever outcome the facts and law dictate. do you, sadie, expect that the special counsel changes the pacer trajectory of the doj's investi

a difference here with jack smith. stay with us, but i want to add to this chief political analyst gloria borger, john avlon, alice stewart and cnn legal analyst and federal prosecutor, elliot williams. gl gloria, i'll start with you and we're getting the first reaction from donald trump's legal team to this announcement, in which the statement says this is a totally expected political stunt by a feckless, politicized department of justice. i hand that to you. >> well, i think that's totally expected. i mean, there's nothing that the department of justice has ever done or will do, that donald trump will respect or say that it was warranted, and i think in this particular case, the trump people had to expect this. as evan said and as the attorney general pointed out, he had no other choice because there was a clear conflict here. you had somebody who announced for the presidency, donald trump, and somebody in eyed joe biden who said it's his intention to run. i think he felt he had no other choice. we know how donald tr

>> so, first of all, nicole, jack smith teams great. i don't know him, but he has the public integrity background. he's exactly the kind of person that you would want to be doing this. having said that, i disagree pretty strongly with the decision by attorney general garland to seek a special counsel. i don't think it's needed under the regulations and i think it risks delaying this investigation needlessly. as you said, one of my first jobs at the justice department was drafting these regulations, and really the appointment of a special counsel is primarily about a circumstances in which you're fearing a cover-up, in which you're worried that the attorney general is being asked to investigate perhaps the president who appointed him or some other high-ranking executive branch official and you're worried that investigation will get truncated, short-circuited through a cover-up or something like that. and so the special counsel is the person to do that investigation. here, however, that investigation is already largely happened. particula

full speed ahead for jack smith. he of course is the new special counsel responsible now for overseeing two of potentially the most consequential investigations in the 150-plus year history of the justice department. the probe looking into the ex-president's hoarding of classified documents at his private club and the sprawling investigation into the january 6th insurrection. "the washington post" reports newly appointed special counsel jack smith continues to work remotely from europe as he assembles a team, finds office space and takes over two high-stakes investigations into former president trump. complex cases that officials insist will not be delayed by smith's appointment, even as they also said they do not know when he will returning to the u.s. garland and smith have both vowed that the appointment of a special counsel will not slow the work in either case, and smith already has become involved, albeit from the netherlands. for example, a court filing said smith has reviewed arguments between the justice dep

and essentially, jack smith responded in writing to this motion and just flatly dismissed it and one paragraph. he basically said it was an analogous and the case in new york involve the search of an attorney's office and it was over a long period where as florida involves classified documents. it's a very different situation legally. the interesting thing that struck me about the letter was that it was very sort of short, to the point and almost you know brusque or getting down to business. so it had a little bit of possible style that we would see from jack smith. >> this guy certainly does not mess around. that is incorrect, as one statement and none of those are true here. gotta love that, he gets the job done. as we dive into him, jack smith's wife was one of the producers of becoming that documentary, about michelle obama and there are reports that she donated money to president biden's campaign in 2020. some republicans are saying, hey that project smith is not impartial. isn't it this really relevant or are they just looking for any reason to discredit this investigation? by

it will just be under the oversight of jack smith, a very reputable, longtime prosecutor. so, i think this is much more diffuse any potential allegation of politicization, and it won't have a dramatic impact on the investigations. >> so, one of the things i want to ask you is last sunday, you tweeted out, i ran for congress on a platform of protecting our democracy and reforming the electoral count. that's a critical piece of that platform. we must pass these reforms as soon as possible to prevent would authoritarians like trump from overturning the will of the voters. with a divided congress set to take over in the new year, what's the hope of electoral reform, and two other pieces of legislation can be passed to modernize our election systems to protect from again, extremism? >> well, the first priority has to be to pass an electoral counts reform act in this lame duck period. there is a bipartisan group of senators that supports it, and i'm very hopeful that they can get it over the finish line before i join in january. but a lot of this is going to be calling out the a

>> this is significant, of course, alex, because this is the attorney general naming someone jack smith, who has decades of this kind of public service in his career background to come and oversee these two sprawling investigations that we now have been going on for some time, of course, without the involvement of jack smith. he's going to come in and currently leave his post, which is investigating more crimes at the hague, and he, in terms of having this experience that's relevant. someone very familiar with the department of justice and how they operate. he oversaw their public integrity division back in 2010, and he's going to be returning stateside, essentially to speak to the key investigators that have been digging into that classified documents case. of course, those that have been improperly handled, allegedly, at mar-a-lago by the former president. since he took them from his time at the white house. and the january 6th investigation. and these are investigations with a lot of different spokes. so, jack smith's job will be to take all the information and then decide whether to

his name is jack smith. he's a democrat, so he will probably hire a team of other democrat prosecutors to investigate the former republican president. mr. smith began his career in new york and worked for the clinton and obama administrations, and right now mr. smith is over in europe. >> that is some very selective polls from the resume there. and some very a selective omissions. your thoughts on the fact that they are shoes-ing to go after this and how they are trying to spin it. >> yeah, i would start by pointing out that we only sort of saw this and maybe have volume because most of their personalities either had the day off yesterday or pre-taped because they were all forced to make fox nation programming and friday so. that's the way out of making fox nation. they missed a window. i it's sort of a half volume but they did turn to the great one which is what they call this guy's -- , and honest he was the in the room with ronald reagan. his argument was that in some ways this is worse than mueller becau

smith's, more quickly, unless jack smith acts with speed this case could run up against the 2024 election or even outlasted. if trump somehow returned to the white house, justice department rules on prosecuting sitting presidents could enable trump to duck whatever accountability he might deserve. attorney general garland should guide the investigation so that it is fair, focused, and within reason, fast. accountability should remain the priority and delivered according to the rule of law. joining me now to discuss this are caroline, an msnbc legal analyst and david rhoden msnbc contributor. great to have both of you with us. got lots of questions for both of you about where this could go. i will talk to you, carroll. some legal experts, including former trump attorney bill barr says there is a real chance of charges. at least that is what he is suggesting. what does this signal to you? >> we'll, if you really pay attention to what bill barr said carefully, if you really look at his words, he does what lawyers to. he qualifies them a lot. he says well, if they can show that the documents

ah ha, this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. former war crimes prosecutor jack smith.

and today's appointment of this little known former justice department official jack smith suggests these investigations are far from over. >> in certain extraordinary cases, it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution. >> attorney general merrick garland naming former justice department official jack smith to independently head up two major criminal investigations focused on former president donald trump. the move coming just days after trump announced his third run for president. underscoring the legal jeopardy the former president faces as cnn has learned prosecutors recently sent out a fresh round of subpoenas in both probes. >> based on recent developments including the former president's announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election, and the sitting president stated intention to be a candidate as well, i have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel. >> jack smith has previously served in multiple roles at the justice department. and since 2018 he has be

>> i don't think that anyone who knows jack smith could view it as a reward to have jack smith designated as the lead prosecutor given his skill and tenacity, and he's known for being really fast and cutting to the chase. i heard you that there may be a short period of time to get up to seed, i had barb's reaction, this portends that there are serious, serious consequences that are going to throw from this. it's not a done deal. if i were a betting man, i would say that you're going to see at least the mar-a-lago documents case being charged in the next couple of months. so i do think in many ways, the time line, to my mind is moving up because of jack being appointed to this position. >> that's the legal front of it but john heilemann notes the little lens we have to look through this as well. you were at the coalition meeting where we heard from a number of prominent republicans, some of who were very critical of donald trump. they seemed more emboldened to take shots at him than they have in a long time. it's true, he's the loudest and most powerful voice in the party. give us your sen

former colleagues describe jack smith as someone who operates very quickly. someone who's really able to drill down on the important part of big cases which this certainly is. he's not someone who's going to waste any time over the side shows. they say he's going to be very aggressive here predicting things are going to speed up. >> i signed an order appointing jack smith to serve as special counsel. >> reporter: the attorney general taking that remarkable step friday for two criminal investigations into former president trump. as special counsel jack smith will look into the retention of classified documents at trump's mar-a-lago resort and parts of the january 6th insurrection. >> such an appointment underscores the department's commitment to both independence and accountability, the extraordinary circumstances presented here demand it. >> reporter: in this case, the extraordinary circumstances were triggered by trump's decision to run for president in 2024. and president biden likely running as well. >> what they have done to their credit at the justice de

jack smith will have to hop on it. there is lots of prosecutors and agents, to extend the metaphor, already on the bus. they've got the case and the facts. he will get up to speed. delay is a non zero number but it's not very large. it shouldn't really be, i think, a reason for grave concern. he will get up to speed. he will be fine. like carole said, he's a very thoughtful, deeply respected prosecutor. i have no trouble with the choice. i think it's a wonderful choice. i'm just not sure it was necessary. >> carol, on the question of what this indicates about the nature of these cases, we don't know. and i think everyone would be at pains to say the decision is not made. but it does seem a fair reading of today's announcement that there is enough there that garland thinks and indictment is a real possibility, otherwise you don't make disappointment. what do you think? >> there is no question about that, chris. until this point, until today, i don't think we had ever actually heard merrick garland or anyone of the parli

let's hope so. >> shan, everything we have heard about jack smith is he does move with some speed. what do you expect the first effects of him taking on these two cases to be? >> i actually think what's telling is that we don't see much effect. as we saw with the eleventh circuit argument, he's not trying to stop things so he can take a fresh look. he recognizes the fact that an enormous ma'am of work has begun. i think what you can really tell about his no-nonsense approach is he's not trying to grandstand or say let me take a fresh look. i mean, there's going to come a time where he has to exercise discretion and make the recommendations, but right now it shows that she is using very good sense to use the existing work and momentum that's already been built up. paul, we heard shan saying it wasn't necessary to name a special counsel. now that it's been a few days since merrick garland cause came out and put jack smith in charge of these investigations, do you think it was the right move? >> i think it was the right move. i think this shows that we put a little distance between th

jack smith is a career prosecutor. he has a high reputation for integrity. he ran the doj division called the public integrity unit. he has experience with exactly the kind of special challenges that come in these cases. we hear so much about no one being above the law, and we'll discuss that later tonight, but politicians write laws, and politicians who are running for office to get back in power have all sorts of complexities that are different than just prosecuting a random person. so, it is striking that the attorney general has picked someone here with exactly that experience. and not only that, you want to talk about a tough assignment? well, he was recently prosecuting alleged war criminals at the hague. now, what does this mean for donald trump? you may recall from mueller that everything led all the way up the line but not including the president, and that had nothing to do with bob mueller or what you think of his probe. the policy under both parties' administrations, that is still policy now at doj, is that a doj prosecutor cannot indict a sitting

geoff: what more could you tell us about jack smith? neil: he ran the public integrity segment of the justice department. that is a small, elite office designed to go aroundhe country and make sure public officials aren't corrupt, aren't engaged in wrongdoing. the people who work in that office, who have n that office in the past are legendary people like eric holder, just to take one example. i think it is a good sign. it is also a good sign he has investigated war criminals and high-ranking people. he has that kind of experience. a big concern here is the delay bringing someone new will bring to the investigation. with respect to the mar-a-lago piece, it seems to me a fairly open and shut case. the proof will be in the pudding. i sure hope mr. smith reaches a decision soon. on the other half of the investigation of jaary 6 and president's possible involvement and complicity in those horrific events, those will take more time. that is understandable. we should let the hardness of the second one interfere with the quick need for a decis

. >> broadly, jack smith, obviously, like his name is coming up constantly. there's been a lot of mixed reaction to his appointment. he's of course the new special counsel appointed, and obviously his investigations. what do you make of it, right? what do you make of all of this noise that we're hearing from republicans? >> yeah, so right now it's just noise. i mean, look, in the end, i personally didn't necessarily think being a special counsel was necessary. i understand why merrick garland did it. i kept it. there are certain optics, reasons to do so. but in the end, whether it was through jack smith, as a special counsel, or through the normal line prosecutors who were running this originally, if there's gonna be an indictment of donald j trump, it's gonna be made by merrick garland, it's not gonna be by the prosecution. and jack smith, if he's gonna do it now, he's gonna bring that to merrick garland first, to basically say if you want to overrule me, speak now, or forever hold your peace. it's a bureaucratic issue at this point. it doesn't change anythi

so to bring in somebody like jack smith and for jack smith to leave his current job to do this, he's not coming in to wind something down, i think it ratchets it up and escalates the investigation if there is an indictment. it's more beyond reproach and that's in the mind set of attorney general garland. if that was the former president's intention, it seemed to backfire. >> do you agree this increases the likelihood of indictment? >> i do. you don't bring a special counsel in when you wrap up a case so i think they have an awareness of the dimensions of the case. there is a real conflict of interest here as garland explained, you've got two candidates running for president and he works for one of them. so he's put it in the hands of an independent thinker, if you will. >> so ryan, does this -- does this speed it up, the timeline? they have a mountain of evidence. you've been clear and ty cobb former white house attorney there is the evidence exists in mar-a-lago. the january 6th is the other investigation. does this change the timeline of an indictment? >> so, i think there is reaso

what are you going to be watching for with jack smith, elie? >> there are a few big differences between the mueller probe and this new probe. for one thing, this is not brand-new. mueller essentially started from scratch. in this case, jack smith is taking over a well-developed investigation. i imagine he will keep most of the prosecutors and the investigators and keep their evidence. but the other huge distinguishing factor, jim, is when mueller was doing his investigation, donald trump was the president, and under doj policy, could not be indicted. of course, that's not the case. there's no protection, by the way, for a former president or for a candidate for office, no formal protection. so jack smith, unlike mueller, will have the option, at least, to indict donald trump. >> all right. elie honig, we've been watching. we've been watching and watching. we'll continue to watch and have you back. elie, thanks, as always. appreciate it. >>> now to a u.s. supreme court justice denying allegations that the outcome of a key high court decision was

to jack smith? how does that manifest? >> so it's not strictly speaking a legal consideration. this is something you think about as a prosecutor. you know, what will a jury do? where will a jury convict based on my evidence? in this sort of a situation, the convictions are a very strong science. it's good for justice, good for the country. it's a good sign for prosecutors. a loss here on this evidence with these facts is something that would have caused prosecutors to take a step back and to have concerns about where they're going next. there are more of these sorts of cases to try involving militias, but doj hasn't ventured, for instance, into the people working in the war rooms at the willard hotel, people who were making an effort to interfere. of course, folks inside of the white house. so this conviction i think gives people some confidence that juries will look at this evidence and convict. >> some of what you hear on the outside -- dangerous tossing around these terms. there's a novelty. a lo