New DOJ special counsel is 'able to indict' Donald Trump and will 'move quickly': law professor

The top prosecutor in Robert Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump explained on Saturday why the new special counsel investigating Trump has significant advantages.

NYU Law Prof. Andrew Weissmann, who was Mueller's top deputy and the chief of the Criminal Fraud Section of the Department of Justice (DOJ), weighed in on the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith.

"The new special counsel, unlike Special Counsel Mueller, will be able to indict Trump as he is no longer POTUS [president of the United States] and will not have to worry about being fired from one day to the next by sitting POTUS," Weissmann explained.

"And he inherits a large amount of evidence and a team that is in place already," he noted.

"The new Special Counsel also will not have to overcome, as Special Counsel Mueller did, Trump's dangling presidential pardons to thwart cooperation with the investigation," Weissmann wrote. "Or using DOJ to stymie and misrepresent the investigation."

Weissmann, who has known the new special prosecutor for two decades, has previously said he expects Smith to move quickly.