Chill motherf*ckers. I’ve got this   Barack Obama 2012

Look, the response of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s announcement of a Special Counsel has been all over the map, on both sides. Justice reporter Elie Mystal made a horses ass out of himself on MSNBC, waving his arms and promulgating the proposition that Garland could have made this lame dick move 18 months ago, when the investigation was starting, if he was going to wimp out. Trump went on FUX News and said that he wouldn’t partake of this partisan witch hunt. Right. Like Traitor Tot has a choice in the matter.

Which is why I led the article with the Obama quote. Garland’s got this, just chill. before I go any further, I want to make this point, crystal clear. Since the start of the investigations, Garland has been firm that the DOJ would not be making public statements, they would speak to the country through their court filings. And most of those filings have contained devastating information that was made public.

As it was today. Until today, we knew that there were two sprawling DOJ investigations underway, One for possible interference in the lawful change of power in the legislature, and one for the purloined government documents, many classified, retrieved from Mar-A-Lago. In neither case did the DOJ name any subjects or targetts, only that the investigations were continuing.

That ended today, by simple logic. In his announcement Garland specifically named the fact that Trump had announced his run for 2024, as well as Biden’s expressed intention to run again as the reason for his decision. But think about it. If Trump wasn’t at least a subject, much less a target, why would Garland need to make this move? It wouldn’t mean jack shit what Trump did. This tells us that Traitor Tot is either a subject of target in both investigation. If not, then there would be no reason to assign the Special Counsel to both investigations.

Next on the menu. Whiners and nay-sayer’s are complaining about the delay this will cause, and they’re pointing to the Robert Mueller Trump-Russia investigation as proof. As my patron saint, John of Stewart says, If you smell bullshit, then call bullshit. OK John. I call bullshit. These people are comparing apples to oranges. Mueller was appointed at the start of the Trump-Russia investigation, he had to build a prosecutorial and FBI investigative team before he could start collecting evidence and holding interviews. In this case, Jack Smith is going to walk into an office with not one but two teams that have been working for more than a year. All he has to do is to hold briefings and meetings to get up to speed where everybody else already is. There will be little if any time loss, and Garland predicted it today.

And here’s an actual positive. Right now the DOJ has 2 separate investigations going on 2 separate tracks. You have the J6 investigation being run by the DC Attorney’s office, and the Mar-A-Lago case being run by main Justice, with their own grand jury. Which means that Lisa Monaco and Merrick Garland are receiving briefings from 2 totally separate DOJ management teams. Which means that Monaco and Garland have to go through two separate sets of books.

But putting Jack Smith in charge of both cases means that the process is streamlined. It is Smith who will take the briefings from both investigations, collate them, look for crossover, and then present a single briefing to Monaco and Garland. And in a couple of complex investigations, the fewer cooks you have in the kitchen at the top, the better.

My personal take on the whole thing. A total wash and non event. With the announcement today, we learned that Traitor tot is at least a subject, if not a target of 2 federal investigations. There isn’t going to be any appreciable delay, since the investigations can continue while Smith gets caught up to date. And in the end, it is still Merrick Garland who will make the final call on indictments. This isn’t the Trump DOJ. These people are professionals, and Biden is giving them the breathing room to operate independently. Step back, and give the lads and lasses room to strut their stuff.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. I think you’ve got it Murf. Here’s something else. As with damned near every Cabinet level appointee of Biden’s Garland walked into a once venerable institution that had been gutted by the prior administration. On purpose I might add. All Cabinet agencies are important of course but some like State and DOJ are more important than others. Garland has had a table’s worth of food crammed onto a single plate. In addition to rebuilding DOJ he’s had the most comprehensive investigation (J6 with new tentacles being discovered even now) to run, and plenty of other stuff both Trump related and not. The entire Criminal Division is but one part. There ARE other things DOJ has to address after all, and rebuilding things like the Civil Rights Division, Counter-Intelligence and so on is a hurculean task. But from the public filings that have been made and prosecutions of lower level insurrectionists (which have been moving to more of the leaders being hauled up in court) proves that progress has been being made. AND DOJ is about to get a big data dump from the J6 Committee!

    My initial gut reaction when news broke that Garland would be holding a press conference to name a Special Counsel was “shit!” But the more I’ve thought about it the more it makes sense. Garland made clear he expects work to continue and that the two main investigations the new guy will oversee will have every resource. AND he made it clear he expects his Special Counsel to if not hit the ground running then get the fuck up to speed and do so quickly. The holiday season is upon us so if indictments weren’t going to drop this week I figured there wouldn’t be any until after the first of the year. Now, during the holidays there will be time for the Special Counsel to get fully up to speed and boy oh boy do I think it’s gonna be a wild ride this winter!

    But the main thing is that Garland has a whole agency to not only rebuild but run and turning over day-to-day management of the two biggest Trump Turds to a quite capable prosecutor will give him time to broaden his focus. He’s got less than a year to get DOJ ready for what will be a shit-show of a 2024 election, and a House that will try and fuck with his budget. These investigations are well along and I see it as a starting pitcher having put together a masterful seven innings in the World Series but will be needed again, and bringing in a great reliever to finish out the game.

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  2. A note on the doomsayers: I am in firm agreement that such can be classed in two ways. One, the proponents of such are either left wing grifters (yes, fellow travelers of the liberal road, they STILL exist, so quit pretending) or True Believers no one should trust with composing a thank you email, never mind analysis. Two, the audience for such who buys it are the broken brained, hopeless addicts who crave their next speedball of helplessness and outrage.

    That’s important framing for understanding why the doom-and-gloom crowd want to bring the rest of us down so hard. It’s not JUST that they want to be vindicated. It’s also that, if we prove them wrong, there’s suddenly less of a market for that schtick. Bill Palmer called it right on the latter group: they belong in therapy, not activism.

  3. More fodder to keep the outraged at bay. No Federal employee goes to jail. If that is not so then please explain why Joel Greenberg is in prison for the exact same crime Gaetz committed at the same time is in prison and Gaetz isn’t?

  4. The appointment is interesting because it includes past as well as future criming.
    Emptywheel points out that they have Scott Perry’s phone, so he’s probably part of this. And then there are the other congresscritters who were/are involved with 1/6 or wanted pardons, like Gosar and Biggs.

  5. I honestly think the appointment has less to do with Trump**’s (and Biden’s) intentions and more to do with the GOP’s House majoritiy’s announced intention of impeaching Garland. Of course they can’t get a conviction because we hold the Senate. But they can impede. Oh boy, can tey impede. They are master time-wasters. But they can’t touch a Special Counsel. This move should speed up, not slow down, the processm, if anything.

  6. I honestly think the appointment has less to do with Trump**’s (and Biden’s) intentions and more to do with the GOP’s House majority’s announced intention of impeaching Garland. Of course they can’t get a conviction because we hold the Senate. But they can impede. Oh boy, can tey impede. They are master time-wasters. But they can’t touch a Special Counsel. This move should speed up, not slow down, the processm, if anything.

  7. Two things going on. Smith isn’t even in the country yet and he’s already going over the paperwork. They are promising an even faster investigation. Second, it’s my opinion that they brought in Smith. They already had a good dog in the hunt with the other guy. I think they might go after the other clowns that were involved. Nobody has said anything but there is what like over a 140 congress people that were involved plus we have learned a lot of support staff and possibly secret service, also. It just seems odd that they would pull Smith when they already had a bulldog to nail down trump and co. unless you are planning bigger party than you have planned.

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