positioned to argue there is no case he shouldn t be charged. the only real chance they have to stop a charge because of the special counsel regulations is to say that the justice department acted inappropriately. it is a much higher bar to reach, and it doesn t seem so far as if they were very successful yesterday. is there anything about that reporting that surprises you, andrew, or is this what you would expect from a team of trump lawyers? it is the latter and just to build on what devlin said, even if the department of justice thought that jack smith had not been scrupulous in following every rule, there is no court that has the power to change that. these are just internal doj rules. this special counsel rules are not law. they re just department of justice internal policies. so there is no sort of endgame where they get to go to court
informs us about whether this evidence satisfies the elements of these crimes once were done all that we make a prosecutorial decision. what charges, if any, do we ask the grandeur to vote on. of course, jen, in this case there is one intervening step that we usually don t have, jack smith has to present all of that with his recommendation to the grand jury under the special counsel regulations. to merrick garland, rather, not to the greenery. he has to present his recommendation to merrick garland and merrick garland has to give him a thumbs up or thumbs down. if you ask me to predict, merrick garland selected jack smith precisely because he had the confidence in jack smith to make this recommendation. so i have a feeling whatever jack smith recommends merrick garland is going to give it a thumbs up assuming he s recommending indictments. the next thing you do is walk in the grand jury and ask for a vote. so evan corcoran, there s also been reporting about voice
we heard no comment from the special counsel. he s always very tightlipped. i think that meeting might have happened, and trump didn t like the way it went. interesting. i owe, i m gonna try one more. but more likely, i m gonna try and make some political hay out of this if i m not getting anywhere with a legal process. what do you think of that? that maybe there has been communication between trump s attorneys in jack smith himself. i think that is likely. the attorneys, one of his attorneys was at the department for a long time. he knows the process. he would know that that s a place to go first. i will note though, despite the independents under the special counsel regulations of jack smith, jack smith, under those regulations, is still obligated to send what are called urgent reports. he s treated just like a u.s. attorney. and required to advise the
department for a very long time. he knows the process, and he would know that that was the place to go first. i will note, though, despite the independence under the special counsel regulations of jack smith, jack smith under those regulations is still obligated to send what are called urgent reports. he is treated just like a u.s. attorney and required to advise the attorney general of any significant developments in sensitive litigation or a sensitive investigation. and clearly the investigation of a former president is a sensitive investigation. so significant developments would include things like a charging decision. so it s not as though he will go to the grand jury, he ll seek an indictment, he ll return, it ll go to court, and then he ll say, hey, merrick garland i did this thing you ve probably already heard about. if he were to think special
special counsel regulations put jack smith in charge. he s not subject to the day-to-day supervision of the a.g., and the a.g. can overrule him only if he s recommending things that are unprecedented that garland has to intervene. by asking for that meeting with garland, sort of asking for it with the wrong person and they know that. lisa rubin, as always, we thank you. billionaire harlan crow refusing to cooperate with democrats investigating his relationship with supreme court justice clarence thomas. the senate judiciary committee asked crow for a list of gifts that he s given to thomas s family. in a letter to the panel, crow s attorney said, congress, quote, does not have the constitutional power to impose ethics rules and standards on the supreme court. the probe stands from reports by propublica that thomas failed to disclose trips and gifts paid for by crow. thomas called the gifts personal hospitality from a close friend which were exempt from disclosure rules at the time.