Don’t get me wrong. I was right there with ya. Nobody has been a more vocal critic of the Attorney General and the DOJ investigating the profligate crimes of the Don Cornholeone Gang than I have. But you know what? We can all be swept away by the intensity of the moment, and ignore decades of precedence that came before it. Everybody has been jumping Garland’s hit about the slow response to obvious crimes. But let’s take a brief look backward.
We don’t need the wayback machine to go back to 2016. Pretty much everybody to the left of Vladimir Putin had cardiac kittens when then FBI Director James Comey went out in front of cameras and announced that the FBI had opened a criminal investigation in regards to then Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to possibly store secure, classified document. But why?
Because the long standing policy of the FBI/DOJ is that they do not announce ongoing investigations against suspects. And they did it for a perfectly good, legal reason. If you announce an investigation, you infer that a citizen is under suspicion for criminal behavior. But if you later decide not to charge, then the defendant has no chance to argue their case in court to clear their good name. It’s been that way for decades. The DOJ announces indictments, not investigations.
But then came Traitor Tot. He turned the DOJ into a political arm of the presidency. But try as he did, he couldn’t turn the FBI into his personal investigative toy. Nut here’s the critical thing. Under the Trump administration, both the media, as well as the public became used to the DOJ announcing investigations, most likely against Trump enemies, rather than indictments. And over 4 long years, that became the new norm. But it isn’t, and never should have been.
But now we have a new, mature, sane President sitting in the Oval office. And when President Biden nominated Merrick Garland to be Attorney General, he vowed to return the DOJ to complete independence, and promised not to interfere with DOJ investigations or proceedings. Which is the way it always was anti Trump!
Which is exactly the way that Merrick Garland is running the Department of Justice. He is not announcing investigations for the purposes of political furtherance of the White House and Biden is leaving him alone to do his job. And Garland is doing that job. Whatever investigations the DOJ is conducting, there is no need for us to know about them. If there’s fire under all that smoke, the DOJ will let us know. Just as it’s always been.
As much as I love MSNBC commentator Elie Mystal, whom I affectionately refer to as Spaceball, because of his mop of snow white hair, he needs to back off of Merrick Garland. He has relentlessly bashed Garland for his refusal to investigate the instigators of the Capitol riot and not just the rioters. Yet in the last 10 days, we have learned that the DOJ is already investigating the people close to Trump, as well as Trump himself for actions leading up to the insurrection. And they’re looking at financial transactions related to the Capitol riot.
Please, people. For the last 4 long years, you have become used to a DOJ that blatantly released salaciou details of investigations into people they had no chance of arresting and convicting. But Biden has restored a presidential hands off policy for the DOJ, And Attorney General Merrick Garland has it functioning just the way it always did. Patience, Grasshopper. Or to quote A Bugs Bunny movie line, Patience is a virtue, patience brings good luck. It is seldom found in humans, and never in a duck!
In a NBC unscientific poll, currently 86% of 190 responders disagree with your assessment. I honestly believe that the absolute failure of the current administration to prosecute the January criminals is the leading cause of Uncle Joe’s poor approval numbers. People expect justice for these criminals, instead, other than prosecuting a few filthy rednecks from the the Capitol, nothing.
More than 110 days ago, the House committee held Meadows in contempt of Congress and urged Garland to prosecute him criminally for interfering with its investigation……again, nothing has been done.
Even if Garland were to act Monday, using Bannon’s trial date schedule as a guide, indicting Meadows would result in a court date well after the mid term election, where the Republicans have vowed to kill the inquiry.
Seems everyone is playing the waiting game…..Garland as well.
I don’t have any special insight, but people who do (Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel {blog} and AG of Mueller She Wrote {podcast}) think the DOJ is doing its job. They have arrested some of the planners (Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leadership) and charged them w/ seditious conspiracy. The Watergate trials, which only involved 12-15 people, took 2 yrs from opening investigations to indictments. It was another 6 mos to a year for convictions. They’ve already charged more than 800 people. This investigation is so huge, it’s just going to take awhile to get to the top of the chain.
As to Meadows, he’s involved in this conspiracy up to his neck. Why indict him for contempt of Congress when you know he’s the linchpin of the conspiracy. He started to cooperate w/ J6C, until Trumplethinskin made it known he should stop. If he is smart, he’s cooperating w/ DOJ. He, at least, has competent legal counsel.
Also, knowing something and having the admissible evidence to prove it, beyond a reasonable doubt, are two very different things.
Meadows was issued a subpoena to testify and did not live up to the requirements of the subpoena…..beyond a reasonable doubt, yet, 100 days later, here we are.
Reps Elaine Luria (D-Va) and Adam Schiff (D-CA), actual members of the committee, apparently disagree with Marcy Wheeler (blogger) as both have expressed open frustration with Garland and his lack of resolve.
As to the 800 Capitol rednecks……low hanging fruit while the real criminals walk free while smiling and watching the clock go ….tic….tic…tic…..
Um, if a COURT DATE is set–even if it should fall after the hypothetical GOP majority takes Congress–the COURT DATE will not change. Garland and the DOJ will continue to pursue the case because the DOJ does NOT answer to Congress, especially with a case that was set before a bunch of crazed GOPers take charge.
The ONLY thing that could affect a COURT DATE that has been set is if the defendant decides to plead out in the hopes of getting a lighter sentence and, remember, Congress does NOT hold any power to pardon criminals–that is the EXCLUSIVE privilege of the President, no matter what morons may be running Congress.
….and when the date arrives the defense will argue since the committee no longer exists there can be no contempt and call for dismissal.
Of course this is supposing that an indictment is ever issued.
DOJ is hiring 130 more attorneys, because they’re dealing with hundreds of cases from 1/6 and not enough courtrooms.
They’ve gotten prison time for a lot of the cases. (A couple of judges are problematic.)
One good reason for no announcements is that (a) Don John would lawyer up (again) to try to get a judge to call the FBI off and (b) would give him another point to scream about being ‘witch hunted’.
No announcements means he is sort of stymied (and can’t bilk his sheeple for he upcoming ‘defence costs’)
I too am terribly disappointed of the feeble, anemic iteration of the current AG. Why is Garland withholding the info contained in the 15 boxes of documents, some Top Secret, from the J6 committee? Why is Trump and his gang of criminal enablers still seemingly coated in teflon? It’s time for Biden to make a change and get an AG in there who will kick ass and hold these traitors accountable for their criminally treasonous actions.
If you would like a counterargument on rushing any of this, may I direct your attention to Michigan for a moment? You’ll recall four mental midgets attempted a botched kidnapping of their governor. You may also know that two of them have now been acquitted and the other two got a mistrial.
Now how did THAT happen? My guess: the prosecution did exactly what too many people want the DOJ to do and rushed ahead. Now, as a result, all four are free and able to do something like this or worse later.
So remember that the next time you treat this investigation like a delayed Amazon package. Any temporary rush you get from getting what you demand will get crushed by failing to get what you need long-term. Teri Kanefield has been saying this quite a while: if you ACTUALLY believe in rule of law, that means you leave it to the prosecutors. All the screaming to “do something” is lynch mob “justice”…and the French Revolution was VERY clear on how THAT works out in the end.
When folks have clearly violated the law, that is not mob justice. Just the opposite.
When it comes to the justice system, “clearly” is in the eye of the beholder. A good defense attorney can ruin a mediocre prosecutor’s case any day with the right technique (as Teri Kanefield, herself a one-time defense attorney, can attest). Andrew Vachss rightly called a trial a high stakes poker game for that reason. Which is why he always prepped like hell before going there. Is it totally fair? Hardly. But way more fair than anything else too many on our side keep screaming for. THAT’S what makes such people a mindless mob and what they want anything but justice.
See, what they actually want is catharsis, a feeling that the world makes sense because people they hated got punished. To feel big and hard and unafraid and who cares how it happened…the important thing is that it happened! It is foolish, childish and guaranteed to backfire with the force of a LAW rocket. Mostly because it proves the MAGA were right all along about something. That the only REAL difference between us and them is the values supposedly believed in. If you’re THAT weak, you got no business talking about the right thing to anybody.
Us common folk are frustrated because the “justice” system hammers us quickly, & often without the truth or justice on their side. Wonder if all the apologists here have ever had that happen to them? I also wonder if Trump NEVER goes to jail, will they have the guts to come back & try to rationalize that outcome? Meadows clearly committed voter fraud here in NC by voting by mail, claiming a false residence. A couple of black folks ARE ALREADY SERVING PRISON TIME FOR LESS. Arguing that reflects anything but a double standard sounds like nothing but rationalization. Which it is. Now let the excuses couched in analysis begin.