This is the Libertarian Podcast from the Hoover Institution.

I'm your host Tom Church, and the Libertarian is Professor Richard Epstein.

Richard is the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow here at the Hoover Institution.

He's the Lawrence A Tish Professor of Law at

NYU and is a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago. Now Richard today it's

difficult but important questions all around and the main one is to indict or not to indict

that is the question in front of attorney general merit Garland but it's not a regular

indictment it's one regarding the former president of the United States. So today I want to ask you

about the possible process, the possible charges, the political considerations of indicting

the former president of the United States,

and then we can talk about whether the indictment should go forward.

So starting with process, if Mr. Garland believes

the standards to open an investigation into Donald Trump

have been met, he could keep the case or he could

appoint a special prosecutor. So to you, what would this look like? Should he keep the case?

Is there too much of a conflict of interest and how long would this process take?

Well, it turns out the conflicts of interest both ways.

First of all, if you keep it inside the attorney general's office,

you then are going to ask the question question is what is going to be the

level of consultation between the attorney general and the president of the United

States and his main political advisors. It's very difficult to maintain a wall of separation between the two of them, but it will certainly give rise to very serious charges of conflict of interest if it turns out that our friend Garland admits that he's talked to the president or his chief advisors and that they recommended going ahead with this particular indictment.

So what that says is maybe we should avoid this problem by appointing a special

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