investigation, as well as in the mueller investigation, which was also over the same special counsel regulations, which applied to criminal investigations, both of these raised significant national security concerns. and i think many were highlighted in the mueller report, particularly volume i, but really both volumes. and i suspect that when all is said and done here, many of those things will be highlighted in this investigation as well. you know, the special counsel, when it completes its investigation, just like robert mueller did, jack smith will prepare a final report. and that report is a confidential report, but it s a report that the attorney general can determine to make public if it s in the public interest. now, of course, as you referred to before, bill barr decided to make it public, but only after he sat on it for 30 days and put out his own four-page summary that left out many of the very key and critical parts of the
special counsel doesn t insulate merrick garland from all the accusations of politicization. we re already seeing it with people saying, impeach garland and stuff like that. but the special counsel regulations do no give a special counsel the power to indict by himself. the attorney general has got to effectively sign off on that. and that s part of our constitution. it s not the special counsel regulations, but the way in which our constitutional structure works. so if garland thought by doing this that he s going to insulate himself from criticism, as i suspect there will be an indictment on mar-a-lago, no way. if there s one thing we ve learned over the last years it s that trump and his base are going to absolutely criticize anyone who goes against donald trump s wishes. it doesn t matter if it s merrick garland, doesn t matter if it s jack smith, doesn t matter if it s trump s own vice president. they will attack anyone who disagrees with trump in appointing a special counsel as
would refer you to d.o.j. for any reaction to this. but in addition, during president biden s event, we told you that he did have some staples he was making about the economy, he was meeting with business leaders, several of the press pool did know about this, they were able to ask him to respond to the news. he declined to answer any questions about this, or any other topic. i also want to bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa ruben. are you surprised by this decision? i m very surprised, chris, by this decision, because there are all sorts of reasons why it didn t make sense for the department of justice to do this. one of the reasons that in my mind it didn t make is because the only way that you can remove a special counsel is for cause, under the current special counsel regulations, and so if merrick garland is displeased with the pace, or with leaks, or with any other conduct of the person he is about to appoint,
investigate crimes, i think was the quote that katie s paper ultimately reported out and sort of stands as the answer of muellerscope. but it s clear from andrew mccabe and others that there were real questions about whether some of the conduct that was scrutinized as part of the obstruction probe was actually part of a national security question. what are the lessons learned from this very recent special counsel probe of the very same man doing some of the very same things? you know, i mean, as an initial matter, the special counsel regulations that apply here really are restricted to criminal investigations. so pete s right that the mandate for jack smith is going to be to complete the investigation, both of these criminal investigations and make a decision about whether to seek charges or not. and when i say seek charges, i mean, it would be up to a grand jury twil return any indictment and any charges. but you re right that in this
let me ask you as well then, lisa, what would your question be today for the attorney general? did you consider any alternatives? so harry was refer together special counsel regulations, which do dictate the appointment of a special counsel in certain circumstances where there is a conflict of interest, or other extraordinary circumstances. but then there s sort of a clause at the end of it says the attorney general is free to look at alternatives including recusals. so one of the questions i have, have you satisfied yourself that those alternatives wouldn t have been sufficient to address concerns of the american public in investigating a former president. for example, could you have limited the people at the department of justice involved in this to those who really and truly have a need to know what is going on. or could you have removed from the investigation anybody with a spouse or immediate family member who works at the white house? were there ways to remove those perceived