democratic leadership team. with that, let s get smart with the help of our lead off panel tonight. my dear friends john allen, senior national politics reporter for nbc news, robert mcquade, veteran federal crown prosecutor, and former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan, she went with a department of justice during the biden transition and teaches law at the university of michigan, an msnbc contributor matthew dowd, and founder of country over party. barb, you know i m gonna go to you first. does this special counsel need to start from scratch? this has been going on for months and months and months. not at all. this is very different from the situation that robert mueller inherited. when robert mueller showed up he had to create a team. he was brand-new to the case. no work had been done. so the first thing he had to do is hire a staff. this is the group don trump famously referred to as 18 angry democrats. instead what jack smith is being hired to do is to oversee
trump denounced the move in an interview with fox, accusing smith without evidence of bias against him, saying they found nothing and now they take some guy who hates trump. that s a disgrace. jack smith saying in a statement tonight he will exercise independent judgment and will move the investigations forward expeditiously, and looting any prosecutions that may result from them. as the justice department continues its investigations into trump s past conduct, democrats in the house are looking forward. hakeem jeffries will one for a democratic house leader now that nancy pelosi is officially stepping down after ten terms in leadership. pelosi today endorsed jeffries along with katherine clark and pete idler as the new democratic leadership team. with that, let s get smart with the help of our lead off panel tonight. my dear friends john allen, senior national politics reporter for nbc news, robert mcquade, veteran federal crown prosecutor, and former u.s. attorney for the eastern
but, but, donald trump is now a candidate for the presidency again. the republican front runner, even, and that reality and all the political dimensions of a democratic and administration and getting a presidential candidate, well that can complicate things for attorney general merrick garland. which may have been the main reasons trump made this announcement right now. throwing a wrench into a lowman criminal indictment. so what does merrick garland do now? join us now is barbara white, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan, professor at the university of michigan law school. barb, thank you so much for joining us tonight! i just merrick garland knew this day was coming, it sounds, like there were some talk of the department of justice looking into a special counsel to handle this politically sensitive matter, should trump announce his candidacy. why do you think his deliberation the stand now? do you think that there is a likelihood or even if he s ability of a
candidate, well that can complicate things for attorney general merrick garland. which may have been the main reasons trump made this announcement right now. throwing a wrench into a lowman criminal indictment. so what does merrick garland do now? join us now is barbara white, barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan, professor at the university of michigan law school. barb, thank you so much for joining us tonight! i just merrick garland knew this day was coming, it sounds, like there were some talk of the department of justice looking into a special counsel to handle this politically sensitive matter, should trump announce his candidacy. why do you think his deliberation the stand now? do you think that there is a likelihood or even if he s ability of a special counsel be being appointed? you know, it s hard to know, i certainly don t have any inside information. and i think it is prudent to at least have that conversation and discuss it, but if
the president and first lady surprised the singer by presenting him with a national humanities medal for his work in fighting hiv a. i. d. s.. with that let s get smarter this evening with the help of our lead off friday night panel, veteran federal prosecutor and former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of michigan, stuart stevens joins us, a veteran of the mitt romney and george w. bush presidential campaign, he s now with the lincoln project, and my friend and colleague john allen senior national politics reporter here at nbc news. barb, i have to give it to you first trump has had a lot of legal setbacks on a lot of friends this week, and now the intel community is going back to those classified documents. i m guessing that cannot be good for trump, why else would he have been fighting against it so hard? yeah, stephanie, also i think one thing that is important is the 11th circuit also ruled that they may look at it from an intelligence risk