Merrick Garland, Trump's Co-Conspirator In Sedition
The glacial pace of his investigation and his refusal to indict Trump for federal crimes (to which Trump has publicly confessed!) gives a green light to the next far-right insurrection.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland, by awarding Donald Trump special, unprecedented, hands-off treatment under the law and refusing to indict him for any of his numerous federal crimes (many of which Trump has publicly and repeatedly confessed to), is aiding and abetting the former president’s most heinous act – his multi-faceted attempt to overthrow the government and install himself as the dictator of an authoritarian state. Until further notice, Garland should be regarded as Trump’s seditious co-conspirator.
Garland has refused to uphold the law, dragging his feet for nearly two years. No other American citizen, even one who had committed a small fraction of Trump’s long list of crimes, would expect such deferential treatment from law enforcement.
When Reality Winner shared one classified document, she was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Trump stole three hundred classified and top secret documents (at a minimum) and stored them in his house. There is no telling how many additional classified documents Trump has already sold off to unknown parties or governments, or hidden at any of his other properties around the world, or at any of his children’s properties, or in a bank safe deposit box, or even – as some have speculated – in his first wife’s casket, which is buried near the first tee on his New Jersey golf course. There has been no indication that Garland has attempted to search any other Trump-related property other than his hotel-athletic-club-wedding-venue-spy-hangout in Florida.
If we pretend that all Americans are equal under the law and use Winner’s punishment as a baseline, then Loser should be sentenced to (at least) 1,500 years in prison.
It was reported last Thursday that a group of former federal prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other legal experts prepared a model prosecution memorandum, which laid out potential charges against Trump and was posted at Just Security. Ryan Goodman, a former Pentagon special counsel, current New York University law professor, and co-author of the memo, said the document is based only on publicly available information, but “shows how difficult it will be for the Justice Department to decline to issue an indictment".
Meanwhile, Garland’s latest move — naming a special prosecutor to oversee two active investigations — has his numerous critics accusing him of helping Trump run out the clock. Trump’s never-ending delay tactics are also infuriating the judge in New York State’s case against the Trump Organization.
Michael Conway, the House Judiciary Committee’s counsel in the impeachment inquiry of President Nixon in 1974, said the AG’s decision to assign a special counsel “was indeed a blunder on Garland’s part”. Conway stated that the “stunning sweep” of the mandate given to special counsel Jack Smith “likely doomed a prompt and focused determination of whether Trump should be indicted”. It also sounds like Garland is allowing himself to be manipulated by Trump.
When Garland announced the move Friday, he noted that Trump launching his 2024 presidential campaign played a part in his decision to name a special counsel. According to the attorney general, a special counsel appointment “underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters.”
But the newly named special counsel will inherit the team of FBI agents and government prosecutors who have been conducting these investigations for months. . . . Smith will simply be a new supervisor for the same investigators.
Additionally, Garland’s comments implicitly acknowledged the perception that a standard by-the-book investigation of Trump by the Justice Department could be perceived as an appearance of a conflict of interest, which undermines his own oft-repeated statement that no one is above the law. . . .
It’s also commonplace for Justice Department lawyers to investigate and indict sitting members of Congress. . . .
Regular government lawyers have also successfully prosecuted politicians in the opposing party of the one controlling the White House. . . .
And the alleged offense at the center of the Mar-a-Lago probe also has a precedent of being handled by rank-and-file Justice Department lawyers. . . .
The fact that Trump is a former president or running for re-election makes no difference. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 65, envisioned that a former president could be criminally prosecuted after leaving office for his past conduct, writing that “he will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” And in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump could be investigated by the Manhattan district attorney while in office.
Moreover, the appointment of a special counsel fails to achieve the perceived desire to distance Garland from the decision of whether to indict Trump. . . . Garland can overrule Smith’s decision if he so chooses. . . . If Smith indicts Trump, Garland can overrule it. If Smith chooses not to indict Trump, Garland can overrule it. . . . The bottom line is Garland will remain at the center of it all.
Garland seems afraid that if he indicts a former president — which has never happened before in US history — it will be interpreted as a vindictive partisan move by Trump’s supporters and the Republican party. Yeah . . . and?
By doing nothing, Garland is allowing the MAGA Cult to boss him around. Does Garland believe mob rule (and a incredibly moronic mob, at that) is an acceptable way to run the Justice Department? It seems like he does. But any attempt to hold Trump accountable for anything will be met with whining and crying by the MAGA Cult. They will also threaten violence and murder and sedition during the 2024 election, but they will do all that even if Garland leaves Trump alone.
Garland is allowing the statute of limitations to expire for Trump’s crimes as laid out in Robert Mueller’s half-assed report on Russian interference (and Trump’s connection thereto) in the 2016 election. Mueller was cowardly in refusing to act against Trump years ago and Garland is following in his footsteps.
As of today, Trump seems poised to suffer no legal consequences for his armed attempt to overthrow the government, a failed coup that led to the deaths of five people and injkured hundreds more. Garland’s cowardly inaction will almost certainly mean that another (the next?) far-right president will also attempt an insurrection, but he or she will have a larger, better-prepared, and more heavily-armed crowd and no serious worries about being held accountable. Precedent will have been set, after all. So when that deadly day arrives, Merrick Garland should receive a sizeable amount of the blame because by deliberately sleeping on the job and refusing to indict Trump in the present moment, he will have actively condoned the sedition.