Emptywheel: It was not Merrick Garland's job to keep Trump out of political office

[Fiendish Thingy]

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Reminder: regardless of who was the AG, the Roberts court would have ensured there would be no Trump trial before the 2024 election.

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended

Thanks for the thread Fiendish Thingy

[xocetaceans]

2. That is a 100% completely lame take on the situation. Merrick Garland's job was to pursue justice for the US . . .

. . . against the insurrectionist Donald Trump and all of his idiot minions in his mob as well as in the House and Senate (to the extent that they supported his insurrection if they did) etc.: had Garland done his job, Trump would have been in prison for the insurrection and not in the White House now.

That person ( "emptywheel" ) can have her opinion, but the political aspect of everything ended when Biden defeated Trump in 2020. Staging an insurrection merits prison. Garland failed to seek justice and was not the AG that the US needed. None of the pursuit of Trump for his insurrection would have been anything but support for the continued existence of democracy in the US. ( Note where we are now. )

Beyond the insurrection, Trump purloined classified documents. Anyone else would have been arrested for that and likely nearly immediately. That is a separate situation for which Trump deserves jail time.

It should be expected of the next AG to pursue justice to the point of seeking an indictment of Trump for his insurrection, etc. and should also seek to re-imprison his minions for their 1/6 Insurrection under new and separate indictments, if needs be.

P.S.: Your "reminder" has no basis in actual reality--it is just your best guess or estimation of how things would have gone. You have no special knowledge to present, just your opinion. Furthermore, if the Democrats want to win elections, more is needed than a "the other side is bad" or a "the macroeconomic stats are great" or a "you know, I just cannot talk to Palestinian-Americans, so I'll just avoid them" approach: candidates who lose have campaigned poorly by definition, and GOTV cannot help that, IMO.

[Escurumbele]

3. You are 100% correct...What a bunch of bull...Garland played us all, and those of us who knew he was doing it

got crucified.

Garland knew what he was doing, which amounted to delaying, and everyone thought he was on the level, and that he was on the side of the law, but he fooled us all.

[Fiendish Thingy]

7. You do know who sets trial dates, right?

(Hint: it isn’t the AG)

I don’t have any “special knowledge”, just a clear, fact based understanding of both the Trump investigations (which, by your post it is clear you do not) and how the justice system processes work.

Even if Garland had indicted Trump the day after Biden was inaugurated, and gotten a trial date for the following week, SCOTUS would have heard infinite numbers of appeals on a myriad of minutiae, and delayed any trial date until after the 2024 election.

That opinion is based on actual events, and actual rulings by this SCOTUS.

Remember, that once the immunity ruling was handed down, then each charge had to be ruled on by the trial judge on whether the behaviours involved were considered “official acts” and thus immune.

Any ruling by the trial judge would be appealed all the way to SCOTUS…how long do you think would take? (Hint: look at the record for the timeline of all the other SCOTUS rulings related to the Trump indictments- the immunity ruling alone took 8-9 months)

And we aren’t even to discovery or jury selection yet- most legal experts estimated that jury selection for the DC charges could take 6-9 months.

So, my opinion that, regardless of who the AG was, the outcome would have been exactly the same - no trial before the election - is an informed opinion.

If you have an informed opinion of your own, please share it, along with the information that supports it.

P.S. That person, “emptywheel”, is Marcy Wheeler of emptywheel.net, a longtime blogger who is respected and reknowned for her legal analysis. She gets into the weeds, poring over court transcripts and evidence, and then writes up excellent summaries of what it all means, with links to all the supporting material.

Her site has a wealth of information, as opposed to speculative clickbait nonsense that spreads mythology and misinformation.

[xocetaceans]

12. Stay on that track by all means. It has worked so well. Hint, hint. Irony must have forced the inclusion of . . .

. . . the term "clickbait" in the last sentence of your post. What do you think that "Emptywheel: It was not Merrick Garland's job" is? Hint: That is a rhetorical question. I think you must like hints and such (explicitly) condescending nonsense.

Yes, Garland had a job. He failed to do it. Had he done it minimally well, the J6 Committee would not have had to give him leads on his own investigation. So, stay with your source's take and the associated clickbait headline if you must, but it is easy to show that that one broad claim is wrong. Garland did not do his job. He was not the AG the country needed. If you don't get that, you should probably reread some William Blake or maybe some Catullus, but who is to say if you'll take that "hint".

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. How would any other AG have done a better job?

Walk me through how your preferred AG would have been able to force a Trump trial before the election?

[rampartd]

4. "because of the way criminal justice works ...."

it might have been necessary to court martial or go extra judicial or kick the process into motion . trump is not too shy to do any of that, and by not being dead or in jail he is killing us all.

[Clouds Passing]

5. MG DID NOT DO HIS JOB!

[Escape]

6. Wow! What a crock of shit....

You have to wonder if Benedict Arnold's family or Lee Harvey Oswald's, tried this hard to whitewash their traitors' histories.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. Clearly you don't have an understanding of the facts of the case or how the Justice system works

I’m guessing your opinion is largely based on the passage of time and end result of Trump not going to prison.

[Silent Type]

8. We absolutely depended on courts to remove trump, and were caught flatfooted when that failed.

[MagaSmash]

10. GOD DAMN MERRICK GARLAND; for the Predicament we now all find ourselves in.

[Fiendish Thingy]

11. Scapegoating the wrong person only allows the true villain to escape the scorn of the nation

Scapegoating Garland protects the Roberts court, the actual villains of this story, from the wrath of the people, and makes court expansion a more difficult sell to voters.

Is that what you want?