Latest in Special Counsel
What triggered the appointment of a special counsel, who is Jack Smith, and what, if anything, does this mean for the investigations into Donald Trump?
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that he has issued an order to appoint John (Jack) L. Smith to serve as special counsel for the Department of Justice to conduct two ongoing investigations related to former President Trump.
We are excited to announce a new project we’ve been working on for the past few weeks here at Lawfare. We are launching a new podcast documentary series on the Mueller Report. Called, “The Report,” it will tell the story of what is actually in the Special Counsel’s report, over a number of narrative episodes featuring the extended family of Lawfare analysts and many of the journalists who broke and reported on key stories the Mueller report details.
Today, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an application in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for an order authorizing the public release of grand jury material “cited, quoted, or referenced” in Special Counsel Mueller's report to Attorney General Bill Barr.
The completion of the Mueller investigation is no small democratic accomplishment and was not a foregone conclusion in an environment in which the president has repeatedly sought to smear and frustrate the investigation.
When President Trump appointed the unqualified Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general on Nov. 7, 2018, many prominent people believed that the country faced yet another “constitutional crisis” point.
The special counsel’s spokesman speaks.
The unnamed foreign corporation challenging a subpoena issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed a cert petition seeking Supreme Court review of the D.C. Circuit's decision in favor of Mueller. The petition is available in partially redacted form below.
President Trump’s attorney general nominee William Barr says he has the “the utmost respect” for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but during his confirmation hearings he would not pledge to release any report produced by Mueller’s office. Some see an inconsistency. They’re wrong.
The New York Times has reported that, in the wake of President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation into the president. At one level, of course, this is not surprising—John Bellinger identified Donald Trump as a potential danger to U.S.