Special counsel Jack Smith, appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, is overseeing pending criminal investigations related to Donald Trump including his retention of more than 100 classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. CERL’s Prof. Claire Finkelstein told USA Today it will be challenging for Jack Smith to recommend charges for seditious conspiracy or insurrection given that they rest on certain psychological factors.

Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. She is founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), a non-partisan interdisciplinary institute affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). She is a distinguished research fellow at APPC and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). Her current research addresses national security law and policy, democratic governance, and professional ethics. Read her bio here.