In the wake of The Washington Post’s blockbuster report that DOJ lawyers were specifically honing in on Trump’s words and actions when interviewing witnesses in front of the grand jury, there was simple shock and awe. The former President is a subject of the investigation!
That simple fact overwhelmed everything else. Which is why I always check back. Earlier today, reporter Jackie Alemany broke her own bombshell on MSNBC, and it snaps everything into focus almost as much as last night’s WAPO report.
Alemany reported that the DOJ had requested, probably by subpoena, copies of Mark Meadows phone records. But here’s the McGuffin. They confirmed that they’ve had them since mid April. Why is that important? Because that was before the J6 committee even started holding its public hearings!
I think that we can finally put to rest the persistent narrative that the DOJ is lagging far behind the J6 committee, eating their dust. For at least two reasons. First, Alemany’s reporting shows that before the committee called a single witness to the stand, the DOJ’s own investigation had already spread far enough out from the events of the day that they were using their legal muscle to get Meadows’s phone records. I guess the DOJ can walk and chew gum at the same time.
Here’s the second reason. You’ve heard it a hundred times, from me as well as former prosecutors. The way a complex crime investigation is run, you start at the bottom, with the little fish, flip them and work your way up the food chain. It’s prosecutorial catechism for a simple reason. It works!
All the way back in mid April, the DOJ was honing in enough on Meadows to obtain his phone records. To be fair, the J6 committee gets at least partial credit, because their contempt of congress criminal referral pt him front and center at the DOJ. As I wrote yesterday, they didn’t find for contempt of congress, but they sure as hell found something.
And remember one more thing. It was reported on Friday that Pence’s former Chief of Staff and lead Counsel had testified in front of the grand jury. The fish don’t get much bigger than that. And you don’t drag them in there to testify if you haven’t already grilled everybody lower in the chain, so you know exactly what to ask them.
Alemany also pointed something out that directly referenced something I had written about more than a month ago. I wrote an open letter to the J6 committee, begging them not to end their final report with a criminal referral for Trump to the DOJ. The reason was simple. Biden and Garland have been doing everything in their power to get politics out of the DOJ again, and a criminal referral would only allow the GOP to scream about a Purely political hit job!
Alemany’s twist is fascinating. She thinks that the persistent narrative that the DOJ was dragging its heels might actually have helped the DOJ do its job the old fashioned way, under the radar. After all, if you have a Democratic led J6 committee, Democratic members of congress, Democratic party leaders, and Democratic pundits bitching out the DOJ for dragging its heels, and the DOJ doesn’t even defend itself, just shuts up and plods along, How political can they be?
Give the boys and girls room to work, will ya? It was reported today that the committee’s blockbuster witness, Cassidy Hutchinson, is cooperating with the DOJ investigation. Trump isn’t a target yet, just a subject, but the grand jury is hearing very pointed questions about him. And if they’re pulling the big fish to testify, that means the grand jury has likely already heard from little fish you never heard of, just like Cassidy Hutchinson, and look how that worked out. Let the process play out.
The hounds are closing in. The trapped swine is panicking, snorting, kicking up dust & squealing to high heaven. Time is running out piggy. Time for the butcher. Pork chops for all!!! Maybe revenge is a dish best served cold.
Wonderful imagery, Scott. The trapped swine is indeed doing all the things you described but I suspect it’s also shitting its wee porcine golf pants.
He still isn’t in a courtroom listening to the charges against him being read. Until such a time we still have bupkis.
squeal trump squeal
When DOJ subpoenas something, not responding has penalties much worse than dissing Congress.
Garland was on the unibomber case and the Oklahoma City bombing. He runs a tight ship (tight lips on anyone working with him too.) He got judgements in both cases. Just saying.
C. S. Lewis once used an anedote to describe how difficult it is to disabuse anyone who is delusional of their delusions. But, as Lewis himself would be the first to say and often did say, a sraight stick points two ways –
““We are arguing like a man who should say, if there were an invisible cat in that empty chair, the chair would look empty; but the chair does look empty; therefore there is an invisible cat in it.””
Or put a little differently –
“There is an invisible cat in that chair.”
“I see nothing”
“That is what you would expect to see if there is an invisible cat.”
Te fact that Merrick Garland’s DOJ is very, very good at keeping investigations under wraps does not prove there has been an ongong investigation into Trump** and mob. But it also does not prove there hasn’t. This has always been a piossibility. It also aooears to my untrained eye that the closer one has followed Garland’s prior career as a prosecutor, the more likely that person is to have had faith all along.