Good news. Jack Smith isn’t screwing around and knows that he has to move fast with an artificial deadline built in, “before the campaign begins in earnest,” whatever the fffff that means, according to the New York Times and Maggie Haberman’s new article.

They believe that the target to indict or not is… summer. Go ahead, scream. I am. We heard the same thing back in October, “Wait until after the midterm election; the indictments are coming, and we’ll have something for which to be thankful and a Christmas present.

Didn’t happen. Instead, Garland played right into Trump’s tiny little hands. Trump announced he is running. Garland started over. Genius. Despite assurances that appointing Smith wouldn’t slow anything down, even a third grader could figure out; “If you bring a new person to be in charge, it will take longer since he has to learn what has happened and then do it how he wants it.”

Now Haberman assures us that Smith is moving rapidly and aggressively. Pffft. Great. A crime committed on live television in January of 2021 may be charged, not tried, charged by the summer of 2023. When Biden wins in 2024, one of the first things on his agenda better be installing a competent A.G. who is not afraid of his own shadow.

Mother Times?

But various developments that have surfaced publicly in recent days show his team taking steps on multiple fronts, illustrating how he is wrestling with multiple and sometimes conflicting imperatives of conducting an exhaustive investigation on a strictly circumscribed timetable.

While there may be multiple fronts and imperatives, there is one mission, accountability, and even this attorney knows that a criminal complaint can be amended to add charges discovered down the road. It would seem that there is at least one front, one crime, they could charge today. Hell, Mueller’s charges are sitting out there… and have possibly passed the statute of limitations. My god.

The intensified pace of activity speaks to his goal of finishing up before the 2024 campaign gets going in earnest, probably by summer. At the same time, the sheer scale and complexity and the topics he is focused on — and the potential for the legal process to drag on, for example in a likely battle over whether any testimony by Pence would be subject to executive privilege — suggest that coming to firm conclusions within a matter of months could be a stretch.

No shit, Maggie? If the sheer scale and complexity are holding Smith back, then decrease the scale and charge some of the more simple stuff. The goal is to get some form of accountability. The global investigation into January 6th was done by Congress. We can take a quick and easy “Defrauding the United States,” or “Obstruction of justice” with the files, adding a charge for downloading classified documents without authorization. Such charges would at least make it such that Trump faced 10-20 years if convicted.

I am not even 1% of the lawyer that Jack Smith is, but I know that no one told him he must examine every angle, every branch, follow every lead and charge every crime. His job is to find out whether laws were broken and, if so, bring charges, not necessarily all possible charges. Thanks to Garland’s 18-month nap, time is of the absolute essence now because a trial date beginning November 15, 2024, is meaningless.

“The impulse to thoroughly investigate Trump’s possibly illegal actions and the impulse to complete the investigation as soon as possible, because of presidential election season, are at war with one another,” said Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general and current Harvard Law professor. “One impulse will likely have to yield to the other.”

Correct. And that’s exactly why you trim down the investigation into something lean and mean to get the indictments started and then amend complaints over the next two to three months. If the judge says it’s too late to amend the complaint with such critical charges, well, get the accountability that you can.

The imperative is not to let this fcker wiggle through clean again.
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[email protected], @JasonMiciak, SUBSTACK: MUCH LEFT ADO

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10 COMMENTS

  1. I couldn’t agree more, Jason. I think a lot of us are sick and tired of TFG getting away with anything and everything he choses to do.

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  2. Garland is useless and has to go. This is why no one rallied support when Grinnin’ Barry nominated him to the SCOTUS. Fire his worthless ass and replace him with someone with balls. Fani WIllis or Tish James would be killer USAGs!

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  3. I’m just waiting for everyone who’s so het on putting Trump on trial while claiming everything’s moving so slowly to publicly fall on their swords before complaining that the prosecutors fell down on the job when Trump is found “not guilty” after the trial.

    I don’t like how slow things are going either, but when you acknowledge that you’re “not even 1% of the lawyer that Jack Smith is,” then how about STOP THE WHINING and let the guy do the job that WILL get Trump put behind bars.

    Do ANY of you idiots remember the “slam dunk” that was supposed to happen in the Rittenhouse trial? Everybody here (and other progressive/liberal sites) was so absolutely sure that Rittenhouse would be found guilty of murder and locked up for years. And then, it didn’t happen that way and all the knives came out for the prosecution for “failing down on the job.” It basically turned out that the prosecution kind of rushed things (because they also thought it was going to be a “slam dunk”) but that’s what all the “progressives/liberals” expected would happen. There wasn’t any “need” to do real investigation; the facts were clear as day and Rittenhouse was guilty, guilty, guilty.

    And that’s why Garland, and now Smith, are doing the tough work of MAKING THE CASE ROCK SOLID so that Trump CANNOT escape.

    You’re NOT going to get a conviction with a half-ass prosecution just because *you know* Trump’s guilty. Believe it or not, that’s NOT the way the justice system is supposed to work. If YOU have hard evidence, send it to the Justice Department so they can see it. But your “belief” that Trump’s guilty is NOT evidence.

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    • The Rittenhouse trial, being a criminal trial, required the highest proof of guilt. That is a very high bar and it is for a reason-to keep the innocent from punishment. While I believe the little shit murdered those people, I also did not think his criminal trial was any kind of a slam-dunk. Anyone who paid any kind of attention at all to O.J.’s criminal trial knew there was a distinct possibility the same thing would happen to Rittenhouse. Of course, now I am hoping he loses his ass in the civil trial–much lower bar to clear.

      The prosecutors did their best but the trial was in WI and that was a tough spot to win a murder conviction of a boy murdering people protesting the ill treatment of people of color. The trial might as well have been held in MS.

    • That’s why I asked for the actual “slam dunk” crimes, like telling the FBI you gave them everything after a year and then have hundreds of files pulled, as “Obstruction of Justice” and not “espionage,” one of those is a slam dunk. How about destruction of records as a president? That’s a slam dunk. Pressuring Pence to not do his job, obstruction again. Those are the ones he could count on getting verdicts.

      As for people dissing the judge in Rittenhouse. I did some research on that. Yes, he was a Trumper, BUT, the rulings he made were entirely consistent with his rulings in other case, including black defendants and others. He “refuses to be a rubber stamp for the prosecutors” and “protects the defendants” which is what we want, normally.

  4. Comparing apples to oranges. Having a Trump judge not allowing Rittenhouse’s past violence and threats into record, and having one of the victims armed himself didn’t help. However it was still better than NOT CHARGING HIM AT ALL! Plus the evidence didn’t shield him from civil complaints which are moving forward. You seem to advocate that you want a guarantee. There are none except it is guaranteed he will skate IF NEVER CHARGED! Plus nice law abiding white middle class folks have absolutely no clue how the law actually operates for the poor in America. That’s a guarantee for you.

    • They never allow prior evidence of bad acts in as evidence for fear that the jury will assume that he’s guilty because of the “usual suspects.”

      The only time you will get evidence of prior bad acts is if one has an M.O., a distinct pattern of behavior, a distinct way of committing a crime, some king of pattern fairly well established beforehand.

      So there was little chance that was coming in under any judge.

  5. For you armchair prosecutors, including the author…

    DOJ does not and should not bring charges unless they’re sure they can convict. Period. end of story. There is no useful purpose served by filing an indictment and then either having to withdraw it or fail to secure a conviction.

    We don’t have all of the evidence, or any of the evidence for that matter, and I’ll bet neither the author nor the commenters are prosecutors, so all you’re doing is speculating.

    I would dearly love to see Orange Jaysus fitted for an orange jumpsuit, but only if his conviction is by the book.

    Now if any of you think you can do a better job, I’m sure the DOJ is looking for a few good men and women.

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