Earlier today NBC News announced the Grand Jury hearing the Trump documents case would be meeting this week after being on hiatus. Here’s an overview of things and how we got here. I have to admit my first reaction was wishing I had a bottle of champagne handy. Within minutes however I’d calmed down and you should too. No one should be popping corks or pounding brewski or shots in celebration.
Why you may ask? A couple of reasons. As I noted this particular grand jury has been on hiatus and surely you know there have been lots of developments on this in recent weeks. LOTS. Add to that the fact that if reporting can be believed Special Counsel Jack Smith has been getting testimony and other evidence from (apparently) quite a few more places and people than we’d previously known. Finally, if I’m not mistaken there is still more testimony and evidence to be collected. Even without that last part, Smith will methodically present all the evidence collected during the hiatus. Maybe even present witnesses. All that is going to take more than a couple of days.
At the very earliest I think it will be at least sometime next week before Smith is ready. Even that’s a maybe.
There’s another issue to consider. The old saying about a prosecutor being able to indict a ham sandwich is hyperbole, but we all know Smith has got plenty. On multiple charges. There’s no doubting he can get an indictment if he asks the Grand Jury for one. So what’s the other issue?
Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Hey, I don’t doubt for a second that Garland believes to his core that Trump is guilty of all manner of felonies, a danger to this country and should be in prison. However believing that and having the guts to act on it is something else. As much as I’m certain Garland believes what I just said, the LAST thing he wants to do is sign off on a federal indictment of Trump! Garland is truly a throwback. Old school. He belongs in an era where a President, say even a Richard Nixon would resign rather than put the country through an impeachment trial. Whether a deal was cut for Ford to pardon him is one of those questions historians will debate hundreds of years from now.
But Garland wants no part of DOJ prosecuting a former President. Including and especially one who will do everything in his power to turn the whole thing into, to paraphrase another awful leader “The Mother of all Sh*t Shows.” Garland probably has spent every day praying Trump would just quietly fade away. A stupid hope, but you’ll never convince me Garland hasn’t held out hope that someone could play Barry Goldwater to Richard Nixon and convince Trump that it was over. Walk away and STFU. Write a book in a few years to cover all the money for lawyers he’d shelled out. And nothing else.
So in addition to the time he’ll have to spend presenting new evidence to the Grand Jury Smith will also have to make the case to Garland that HE has no choice but to allow Smith to seek an indictment. To sign off on the charges and make no mistake. Smith is a Special Prosecutor and not an Independent Counsel. As a Special Prosecutor he has to have formal approval from the AG to file charges.
That will take still more time. Because he will have to lay out a detailed case to Garland, and probably call in some outside help to convince Garland there’s no choice but to press charges. That if Trump isn’t charged the Rule of Law is dead.
I’ll end how I started. Be heartened that things are moving closer to where we want to be. But hold off on celebrating because My prediction is that instead of days, we are weeks away from an indictment.
(For the record I’d be delighted to be wrong!)
i don’t know what Garland’s problem is?
Setting a precedent for indicting former presidents OR setting a precedent that someone can commit such a long list of serious criminal behavior while being in such an important position of trust and power, and corrupting our government, and NOT charging them.
The choice is clear.
No person, whatever their status, is above the law.
Talk with Jack Smith. Garland will have to sign off on the indictments, but probably nothing will happen before *next* week, because of setting up security.
Also I AM FCKING TIRED OF PEOPLE BLAMING GARLAND FOR NOT DOING IT TO THEIR SCHEDULE.
When it comes to all this I’m reminded of an old movie about Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the Pope continually asking when the whole thing would be done. The reply? When I am finished. Meaning it will take how long it takes. That’s why I say an indictment will come, but instead of days it will take weeks.
As for Garland, in one respect he was the perfect person to take over as AG because so much insitutional damage had been done by Trump’s appointees. Putting that mess back into some kind of order was going to be a year’s long process and take someone with a LOT of credibility from those who managed to get through the Trump years, as well as many who left or got forced out who might have been enticed to return. Garland certainly fit the bill.
However, January 6 in and of itself meant investigation of Trump’s people and Trump himself, not to mention other crimes. Barr ignored the case for Obstruction that Mueller handed DOJ on a silver platter but it was there for someone willing to pursue it. And Garland wasn’t. The fact it took him so long to appoint a Special Counsel with authority over the various Trump investigations also indicates Garland’s old school tendencies dominate his thinking and actions.
In that respect, an AG who’d gone after some mob boss and crime family was what was needed. Someone who would accept the death threats to themselves and their loved ones and deal with serious 24/7 protection for them all. Garland simply isn’t that kind of person.
Finally, he took a job that because of Trump was always going to have him in a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” situation. I truly believed he foolishly hoped that at some point Trump would put the good of the country above his own interests. Like I said STFU and fade away. Outrage over him not going to prison would have, as with Nixon been severed for a while but it would have faded to manageable levels. Garland was a damned fool for thinking Trump would ever do what Nixon did. Go away and lay low for a few years.
So yes, I think some criticism is warranted. Garland had plenty of legal and political justification to appoint a Special Prosecutor well over a year before he did. He kept putting it off, and I believe due to the hope that Trump would either drop out of politics on his own or the GOP would dump him. His hand got forced. Finally. But the late start Smith got means that although Garland will be forced to sign off on an indictment for the classified documents at least (two, more likely three weeks from now) but had Smith or someone like him been put on the case a year earlier we’d be looking at Trump being on trial this fall. As things stand, I don’t see a trial date before the 2024 election and that my friend can be laid at Garland’s feet.
Garland has said numerous times that he will accept the special counsel’s recommendation. He picked Jack Smith for this job for a reason. If you go after the “king”, you best not miss and Jack has the resume to prove he’s diligent and thorough. When Jack is ready, Garland will OK the indictment, especially in the documents case, which is a slam dunk.
The Rule of Law explained: the Rule is, if you have power, wealth and/or influence with either of the former, the Law will ensure you are never held responsible or accountable.
Garland is just another Black Polyester Partisan – an unprincipled brinksman and mountebank, fraud to the very last, only ever worried about the gamesmanship of political optics.
Trump never sees the inside of a courtroom for criminal charges and serves precisely zero, (0), days in prison, ever.
As Nancy Pelosi clearly indicated – we don’t indict politicians, we don’t prosecute politicians, we don’t incarcerate politicians, “it’s not good for democracy”. U.S. = 5th deluded trash heap of primate fecal matter.
Nancy Pelosi said that when and in what context?
One of her walk off, sidebar moments when a reporter brought up Netanyahu’s corruption charges and possible pending indictments …and whether she thought Trump should/could be indicted. Including one of her typical “I’m a good Catholic” pointless diatribes.
Nope, you seem to be the only one that ever said ‘we don’t….’
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Trump Indictment This Week? Don’t Celebrate Just Yet
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14 hours ago — As Nancy Pelosi clearly indicated – we don’t indict politicians, we don’t prosecute politicians, we don’t incarcerate politicians, “it’s not …
You may want to read up on search algorithms. You can’t currently find much on Pelosi, at all, past Paul’s attack, Feinstein comments, (which don’t at all include Nancy’s elder abuse of the woman – curiously?) and Nancy’s speakership retirement.
You also won’t find when during an interview about the ACA negotiations, she screamed at a reporter that she didn’t need his facts in her argument. She didn’t assert it, she Desantis’d it.
It’s called content filtering, and Google owns the content, the algorithms and the filtering. Just like Hillary’s failed run and Google disappeared all the content on her dirty bank/finance flesh press events and corporate favors to the Clinton Foundation and burying Sen. Sanders candidacy with DNC collusion. Bye bye content that doesn’t favor the oligarchs mandated messaging.
Spare me the nonsense, you see what search engine owners allow. Even the archiving is no longer sound, ask Elon Musk – 2014, 2015 interviews – curiously, disappeared.
I always have to laugh at the trolls that show up here. At least they keep things interesting!