Scott noted earlier that Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to torment Donald Trump. Garland said, I assume with a straight face:
It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.
Indisputably! Right. Smith will be returning to Washington from The Hague, where he is “chief prosecutor for the special court.” That will be good training for his role as the Democratic Party’s agent in destroying Donald Trump. The Democrats have been planning on indicting Trump for a long time, and appointing a special counsel is part of their plan. It allows them to wash their hands of the investigation, pretending that impartial justice is simply taking its course.
For the record, Smith’s charge includes both the events of January 6, 2021, and the innocuous documents that Trump stashed in his Mar-a-Lago basement.
While obviously an act of political cynicism, the significance of this appointment should not be underestimated. I assume that Smith will be able to bring criminal charges against Trump in Washington, D.C., and it is almost a foregone conclusion that Trump will be convicted (of whatever the charges may be) by a hyperpartisan D.C. jury. In 2024, will Trump be the Republican nominee for president, or will he be trying to fight off a prison sentence? Or both?
Meanwhile, Republicans have trumpeted their intention to investigate the Biden family.
After winning control of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans said on Thursday that investigating President Joe Biden and his family’s business dealings will be their top oversight priority when they formally take power next year.
To their credit, Republicans have made it clear that they are investigating Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden. So while the Democrats are investigating and prosecuting Donald Trump, the Republicans will be investigating (but not impeaching) Joe Biden. I am not sanguine about how this will turn out.
While the ability of a special counsel to wreak havoc is well established, Congressional investigations tend to fizzle out. For one thing, Congressmen usually are not very good at it. For another, Congressional committees lack adequate investigatory powers and, for reasons I have never understood, are reluctant to use the powers they do have. Thus, instead of subpoenaing documents, Congressional committees request them. The responding party, usually a government agency, responds by producing whatever selected documents it deems advantageous to itself.
Or else the responding party ignores the committee entirely, like Eric Holder. Republicans who ignore Congressional committees, like Steve Bannon, might go to jail. Democrats who ignore Congressional committees, like Eric Holder, go on to multi-million dollar a year jobs in the establishment.
So I expect the dueling investigations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden to be a mismatch. The Trump investigation will likely result in an indictment and criminal conviction. The Biden investigation will tell us what we already know, and its findings will be a deep secret unless you read Power Line, InstaPundit, Breitbart, and other conservative news sources. Most news outlets will parrot the Democrat line that Biden’s corruption is a “long-debunked conspiracy theory.” It is all about poor, drug-addled–but now reformed!–Hunter Biden. And did you know that Joe’s other son died in Iraq?
Call me a pessimist, but that is how I see it playing out.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/11/dueling-investigations.php
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