Expert: Garland is an 'idiot' if he thinks the 'cult of Trump' won't go after the special counsel next
On Friday, Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Jack Smith, a hardline prosecutor who went after war criminals at The Hague, to serve as a special counsel in the Justice Department's investigations of former President Donald Trump — largely out of an abundance of caution with both President Joe Biden and Trump himself potentially about to run against each other in the next presidential election.
But on MSNBC's "The Beat," legal analyst Elie Mystal laid out a harsh warning for Garland: the appointment will do nothing to stop Trump's allies and associates from simply going after Smith and subjecting him to the same years of abuse and conspiracy theories they leveled at Russia special counsel Robert Mueller.
"Elie, when the standards involve public perception of fairness, the question becomes, is this helping the DOJ on that score?" asked anchor Ari Melber.
"If Merrick Garland thinks that kicking this to Jack Smith from The Hague is going to take down the partisan pressure on him and make the right wing feel like this is a fair process, he's an idiot," said Mystal flatly. "Wait until these people get into Jack Smith's laptop, wherever the hell that is. Wait until these people start going through Jack Smith's garbage can to find out his priors. Like, the idea that these people on the right who are in the cult of Trump are going to let this go because now we have Jack Smith, like, is he insane? It's going to be the same appearance of partisanship."
The only thing this could potentially do, Mystal continued, is to introduce another "delay" — and that delay could ironically make the process even more politically charged.
"What I'm trying to get people to understand is the passage of time, okay?" said Mystal. "We are 14 months away from the New Hampshire primary where Donald Trump will most likely be a candidate in that primary. How long do you think you have to charge him, to get the trial going before the primary process? Because if you think Donald Trump's going to be sitting in a trial while he's also in the Iowa caucuses, I got another thing coming for you. If you're going to charge him and get clearance from the primary process, you kind of got to go now, and all this process is going to do is add delay."
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