Who Should Be The Special Prosecutor?
We examine some of the best choices the Trump administration could make for the special prosecutor job.
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We’ve now got it on videotape that Jeff Sessions lied in his confirmation hearings and is a terrible lawyer for it. Merely telling an untruth does not a perjury conviction make, but no less than George W. Bush’s ethics guru characterizes the testimony Sessions provided as “a good way to go to jail.”
But how does one investigate the nation’s highest law enforcement official? To employ the old saw: who will police the police?[1] That’s why many are calling upon the administration to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the many intertwined Russia scandals afflicting the administration. But how, exactly, does that work?
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On Twitter, Neal Katyal pointed back to an editorial he wrote in 2007 discussing the regulations he wrote following the demise of the Independent Counsel Act noting that “a case in which the attorney general herself and her deputy were suspected of possible misconduct” was the most worrying hypothetical. For that reason, the rules were set up to put the responsibility of hiring a special prosecutor on the most senior DOJ official who isn’t involved in the scandal. Given that it’s hard to find anyone in the administration who hasn’t met with the Russians — most recently, NYU Law grad Jared Kushner joined the undisclosed Russian meeting train — I’m assuming an AUSA in Omaha will get this task.
But whomever ends up shouldering this burden, they’ll need to pick someone who balances tenacity and zeal with prudence and discretion. It’s going to be a difficult job. We’ve decided to look at some of the administration’s options.
Ken Starr
What better choice for the job than someone with years and years of solid experience in the role.
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The guy is looking for work these days after leaving Baylor… for some reason.
Merrick Garland
Smart, respected jurist and former prosecutor who is looking for something to do with his free time.
And he has no possible beef with the administration whatsoever.
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Ben Matlock
That might look like Jeff Sessions, but that’s actually Georgia’s finest litigator Ben Matlock. He’s an “outside the Beltway” option that brings the DOJ all of the Sessions charm with about 80 percent less of the race issues.
Eliot Spitzer
We don’t know about you, but for anyone practicing in New York during his run as AG, it’s hard to imagine a more relentless prosecutor. The guy was all over you. The defense bar would make mugs of his face in a fast food hat with the line, “you want a subpoena with that?”
Besides, if there are allegations of hookers peeing on hotel beds, we feel the former governor will be able to get to the bottom of them.
Matthew McConaughey
“Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she’s the Emoluments Clause.”
Claire Huxtable
The prominent New York attorney is a bit of an old school selection. Plus, it was never really clear what her chosen practice area was But she’d be a dream get for the Trump administration.
She… um… has experience overlooking indiscretions.
Walter Putman
A relative unknown, Mr. Putman has appeared on every one of the leaked Trump memoranda discussing the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor.
Mr. Putman is a partner at Jones Day.
Skip Bayless
Prominent sports ruiner Skip Bayless has waged a decade-long crusade to prove something demonstrably false (that LeBron James does not have “champion’s DNA”). He is a skilled race-baiter, a wizard at using anecdotal stats to buttress entirely subjective analysis, and seems to honestly confuse being “reviled” with being “important.”
Doesn’t that sound like a special prosecutor to you? If you asked Skip to investigate whether Jeff Sessions had “what it takes” to be Attorney General, he’d conclude that Sessions isn’t from Dallas and then never, ever let it go. He’d turn a perjury inquiry into a referendum on the “mental toughness” of a guy who “never won an election, outside the state of Alabama.”
Johnnie Cochran
Obviously he lacks prosecutorial experience, but the O.J. Simpson defense lawyer is celebrating a renaissance between People vs. O.J. Simpson and an Oscar win for O.J.: Made In America.
But this pick would come with several red flags for the Trump administration. After all, at some point a pair of hands are so small that literally any glove will fit.
Joe McCarthy
Intersting potential pick for the administration.
Pros: Right-wing populist from Wisconsin.
Cons: Has a hang ups about Russians.
Annalise Keating
The controversial Middleton professor literally knows how to get away with murder.
Also, everyone would pay attention to the scandal for awhile… and then get bored and stop watching.
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Chris Christie
Did you know Chris Christie was a prosecutor? Weird, right? Because he never f**king mentions it.
Who knows if he’d take on a special prosecutor gig but he was overheard saying, “time for some traffic problems for the a**hole who took my job.”
Earlier: Jeff Sessions Is In Trouble Because He Made A Rookie Lawyer Mistake
Bush’s Ethics Lawyer Has Some Pretty Definite Opinions On Jeff Sessions
[1] The answer, as always, is the Coast Guard.
