, president of the conservative activist group Judicial Watch and an informal adviser to Donald Trump, has a new talking point: Special counsel Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute the former president because he wasn’t confirmed by the Senate. That claim is wrong, and his reasoning is riddled with problems.
special counsel Robert Mueller lacked authority under the Constitution to conduct his investigation. The implication of these narratives is that the Justice Department is going rogue by letting unregulated outsiders seize control of hugely important legal matters.extraordinary circumstances ” or to avoid the possible appearance of conflict of interest — in this case, the optics of a Biden-appointed official pursuing the incarceration of a political opponent. Special counsels don’t require Senate confirmation, but under the Code of Federal Regulations, they should have reputations for impartiality and “informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies.
Fitton, who isn’t a lawyer, doesn’t have an impressive track record of providing against-the-grain legal advice to Trump. Fitton correctly points out in his video that special counsels aren’t supervised day to day by the attorney general. But they can be