Merrick Garland’s Special-Counsel Appointment of Jack Smith Is in Peril

Nothing might change — except the politics of the 2024 presidential campaign.

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Left: Attorney General Merrick Garland at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., August 11, 2023. Right: Special Counsel Jack Smith at his offices in Washington, D.C., June 9, 2023.

Bonnie Cash, Leah Millis/Reuters

In the coming weeks, there is a very real possibility that the federal district court in Florida will rule that Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Jack Smith as a special counsel (SC) violated the Constitution’s appointments clause (Art. II, §2, cl.2).

If Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointee who is presiding over Smith’s illegal document-retention prosecution against former president Trump, were to make such a ruling, would the Biden Justice Department have to start the case over from scratch? Perhaps, but I think that’s unlikely.

Andrew C. McCarthy

About the Author

Andrew C. McCarthy

Andrew C. McCarthy is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency.

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