Tag: special counsel
Why Robert Hur Called Biden an “Elderly Man with a Poor Memory”
When I first approached Robert Hur for an interview, soon after his appointment as special counsel, fourteen months ago, he demurred, saying, “I’m boring.” Then his circumstances changed. When we finally met, he pulled up in an armored black government S.U.V., accompanied by two U.S. marshals. Hur had completed his report on whether President Joe Biden had mishandled classified documents—he had declined to prosecute Biden but had impugned the President’s memory in the process—and members of both parties were furious.
How Hur Misled the Country on Biden’s Memory
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First impressions stick. After a big story hits, the initial conclusions can turn out to be wrong, or partly wrong, but the revisions are not what people remember. They remember the headlines in imposing font, the solemn tone from a presenter, the avalanche of ironic summaries on social media. Political operatives know this, and it’s that indelible impression they want, one that sticks like a greasy fingerprint
A Former Federal Prosecutor Explains the Latest Trump Indictment
On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump was indicted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. The charges, brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel for the Department of Justice, specifically accuse Trump of conspiring to obstruct a government proceeding, defraud the United States, and deprive people of their right to have their votes counted. (A fourth count also pertains to the obstruction of a government proceeding.) To talk about the indictment, I spoke by phone with Mary McCord,
The First Great Crisis of a Second Trump Term
Both his supporters and and his opponents assume that former President Donald Trump’s legal jeopardy will go away if he can win the 2024 presidential election. That’s a big mistake. A Trump election in 2024 would settle nothing. It would generate a nation-shaking crisis of presidential legitimacy. Trump in 2024 means chaos—and almost certainly another impeachment.
Trump’s proliferating criminal exposures have arisen in two different federal jurisdictions—Florida and the District of Columbia—and in two different state jurisdictions, New York and
A Special Counsel for Hunter Biden and His Family Business?
Is a special counsel really worse than a politicized Justice Department? That depends.
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Trump Will Abuse the Presidency to End His Legal Troubles
If, as seems likely, Donald Trump is the Republican presidential nominee next year, the 2024 elections will be a referendum on several crucial issues: the prospect of authoritarianism in America, the continuation of a vibrant democracy, the relationship between the executive branch and the other two branches of government, and much else of grave significance.
It will also be a referendum on whether Trump will ever be held legally accountable for his actions. Trump faces multiple civil suits and at
The Three Biggest Obstacles to Convicting Trump
Donald Trump has been indicted on 37 felony counts related to his theft of classified documents and his obstruction of the investigation into that security breach. Now comes the hard part: trying the case.
Prosecutors often talk of the “cruel dilemma” they face: If they secure the conviction of a charged defendant, they are “just doing their job” and merit no substantial credit; if they indict and fail to secure that conviction, they have somehow messed up.
To a large
The January 6 Committee Is Not Messing Around
The open hearing last week of the committee investigating the January 6 coup attempt plunged viewers back into the brutality and terror of that day. The committee featured footage of insurrectionists beating the law-enforcement officers who attempted to stop them from entering the Capitol, material disturbing enough that YouTube later labeled video of the hearing as “inappropriate for some users.” Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who testified about her injuries at the hands of the rioters, described “slipping in
A Taxonomy of Republicans’ Coded Language
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The first time I witnessed the birth of a right-wing talking point, I was sitting in a crowded ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center, in National Harbor, Maryland. This was the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, and I was listening to Sebastian Gorka deliver remarks that fell somewhere on the spectrum from venting to fomenting.
There he was in his three-piece suit, voice booming: “They want to