Appointing a Special Counsel was the right move. The Justice Department, like every other executive agency, is overseen by Joe Biden, Trump’s once and possibly future opponent for the White House. Trump is the most politically radioactive figure in the country, a good deal of which hates him. The hatred is concentrated in the Democratic Party (although it exists elsewhere as well), of which Biden is the leader. It is thus wise to try to insulate the Justice Department, to whatever extent is possible, from the reality or perception that any Trump prosecution will be politically influenced. A truly independent appointment would have helped to at least some degree — a figure like Michael Mukasey, who is known as a man of integrity not out to get Trump. The person chosen, veteran DOJ prosecutor Smith, seems to have the technical competence and experience for the job, but his overall background poses too many questions. If Trump does get indicted, those questions will certainly haunt the prosecution — a prosecution that is sure bitterly to divide the country in any event, and therefore one whose non-political character is urgently in need of establishing. Smith’s appointment falls well short.

This is so for several reasons. The first is this, reported by the New York Post: “Trump special counsel’s wife worked on Obama film and donated to Biden.” …

When a special counsel assigned to the potential prosecution of Donald Trump is robustly praised by (1) the MSNBC “legal analyst,” (2) Laurence Tribe and (3) Andrew Weissmann, your antennae have to go up. The Weissmann endorsement of Smith as “very aggressive” is particularly alarming; Weissmann was widely regarded as something of the “mad dog” of the Mueller probe, and had a reputation in the US Attorney’s Office before then of being particularly hard-edged and envelope-pushing. Those are not necessarily bad traits per se in a prosecutor; the world is full of clever and rapacious criminals, and bringing them to account is not a job for the faint-hearted. But they are less than optimal traits for the special counsel in a politically loaded case, where what is most called for is prudence, maturity and judgment.