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Emergency Edition: Another Special Counsel Investigation of Donald Trump

The Lawfare Podcast

CHAPTER

What's the Relationship Between the Attorney General and the Special Counsel?

A special counsel is the latest iteration of a species of prosecutor we call a special prosecutor. The Attorney General names an outside figure to take over the investigation and for Byzantine constitutional reasons, that person has to be removable by the Attorney General. As a practical matter, what this means is Merigarland has turned over to Mr. Smith, the decision of whether to indict Trump in either of these cases. So I think functionally it's a very fateful decision and probably one that was quite painful for Merigarlands to make.

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