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A Trump indictment is invevitable

Yeah, Garland is laboring, like an old mule dragging a rusty plow. He needs to get serious and start producing results.
I think his meticulousness is warranted.

As noted, this will be a decision with massive, historical implications. It has to be a slam-dunk, no-brainer, backed with evidence decision.

I think he's the right man for the job.
 
I think his meticulousness is warranted.

As noted, this will be a decision with massive, historical implications. It has to be a slam-dunk, no-brainer, backed with evidence decision.

I think he's the right man for the job.
What more evidence does he need?
 
What more evidence does he need?
As much as humanely possible on multiple fronts. FTA:

Rather than starting with the offenses of the president himself, the department has devoted its resources to tediously building cases against every gym teacher and accountant who breached the Capitol on January 6, some 900 indictments in total. The volume of cases has risked overtaxing prosecutors—and pushing back the work of building more-complicated cases against Trump’s inner circle.

But what looks like donkeywork is a necessary step in a formulaic approach, a set of prescribed practices that have their own embedded wisdom. As Garland explains it, the department has no choice but to begin with the most “overt crimes,” and slowly build from there. To start with Trump would have reeked of politics—and it would have been bad practice, forgoing all the witnesses and cellphone data collected by starting at the bottom.

By focusing on Trump, Garland’s critics tend to underestimate the importance of the other arms of the January 6 prosecutions. The Justice Department has made an example of the foot soldiers of the insurrection, and has thus deflated attendance at every subsequent “Stop the Steal” rally. Evidence supplied by the minnows who invaded the Capitol helped the Justice Department indict leaders of the Oath Keepers (Elmer Stewart Rhodes) and Proud Boys (Henry “Enrique” Tarrio) on charges of seditious conspiracy, the most meaningful steps that the government has taken to dismantle the nation’s right-wing paramilitaries. (Both men have pleaded not guilty.)


Based on subpoenas and the witnesses seen exiting the grand jury, the department is clearly moving up the ladder, getting ever closer to Trump’s inner circle and to Trump himself.
 
Yeah, Garland is laboring, like an old mule dragging a rusty plow. He needs to get serious and start producing results.
You want a good case, or a fast indictment? Seems like to me that the DoJ is bringing in people for interview. Some of this appears to be before a grand jury. Documents are being reviewed and catalogued. Then you go back to people and cross check their sworn testimony to see if anyone’s memory has been refreshed.
All of this with at least one hostile, dullard of a judge in the way.
 
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You want a good case, or a fast indictment? Seems like to me that the DoJ is bringing in people for interview. Some of this appears to be before a grand jury. Documents are being reviewed and catalogued. Then you go back to people and cross check their sworn testimony to see if anyone’s memory has been refreshed.
All of this with at least one hostile, dullard of a judge in the way.
It's closing in on 2 years. We are past the fast indictment era.
 
It's closing in on 2 years. We are past the fast indictment era.
You keep glossing over this massively important piece:

No matter how much one fears Trump, the prosecution of a former president can’t be undertaken lightly. The expectation that political enemies will be treated fairly is the basis for the legitimacy of the entire legal system. That’s why Garland’s hand-wringing and fussiness matter. Any indictment he brings against Trump will have survived his scrutiny, which means that it will have cleared a high bar.
 
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You keep glossing over this massively important piece:

No matter how much one fears Trump, the prosecution of a former president can’t be undertaken lightly. The expectation that political enemies will be treated fairly is the basis for the legitimacy of the entire legal system. That’s why Garland’s hand-wringing and fussiness matter. Any indictment he brings against Trump will have survived his scrutiny, which means that it will have cleared a high bar.
Bro, everyone glossed over most of your Herman Wouk level post.
 
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How about inevitable?

THE INEVITABLE INDICTMENT OF DONALD TRUMP​

Merrick Garland hasn't tipped his hand, but it's clear to me that he will bring charges against the former president.

By Franklin Foer

OCTOBER 11, 2022

As an appellate judge, Merrick Garland was known for constructing narrow decisions that achieved consensus without creating extraneous controversy. As a government attorney, he was known for his zealous adherence to the letter of the law. As a person, he is a smaller-than-life figure, a dry conversationalist, studious listener, something close to the opposite of a raconteur. As a driver, his friends say, he is maddeningly slow and almost comically fastidious.

And as the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, he is a hyper-prudential institutionalist who would like nothing more than to restore—quietly and deliberately—the Justice Department’s reputation for probity, process, and apolitical dispassion. Which is why it is so difficult for me to imagine him delighting in the choice he now faces: whether to become the first attorney general in American history to indict a former president.

But this is what I believe he is preparing himself to do.

I have been observing Garland closely for months. I’ve talked with his closest friends and most loyal former clerks and deputies. I’ve carefully studied his record. I’ve interviewed Garland himself. And I’ve reached the conclusion that his devotion to procedure, his belief in the rule of law, and in particular his reverence for the duties, responsibilities, and traditions of the U.S. Department of Justice will cause him to make the most monumental decision an attorney general can make.

Let me be absolutely clear: Garland did not tell me he was going to indict Donald Trump. In fact, he did not tip his hand to me in any way—he is far too cautious to signal his intentions to even his closest friends, much less a reporter. Nor did his top aides suggest the announcement of an indictment. When his department says that it doesn’t discuss ongoing cases, it means it—at least in this case.

Before I lay out the reasons I believe I am correct in this assessment, I want to discuss why it is entirely possible I am not. The main reason to disbelieve the argument that Garland is preparing to indict is simple: To bring criminal charges against a former president from an opposing political party would be the ultimate test of a system that aspires to impartiality, and Garland, by disposition, is repelled by drama, and doesn’t believe the department should be subjected to unnecessary stress tests. This unprecedented act would inevitably be used to justify a cycle of reprisals, and risks turning the Justice Department into an instrument of never-ending political warfare.

And an indictment, of course, would merely be the first step—a prelude to a trial unlike any this country has ever seen. The defendant wouldn’t just be an ex-president; in all likelihood, he’d be a candidate actively campaigning to return to the White House. Fairness dictates that the system regard Trump as it does every other defendant. But doing so would lead to the impression that he’s being deliberately hamstrung—and humiliated—by his political rivals.

Garland is surely aware that this essential problem would be evident at the first hearing. If the Justice Department is intent on proving that nobody is above the law, it could impose the same constraints on Trump that it would on any criminal defendant accused of serious crimes, including limiting his travel. Such a restriction would deprive Trump of one of his most important political advantages: his ability to whip up his followers at far-flung rallies.
In any event, once the trial began, Trump would be stuck in court, likely in Florida (if he’s charged in connection with the Mar-a-Lago documents matter) or in Washington, D.C. (if he’s charged for his involvement in the events of January 6). The site of a Washington trial would be the Prettyman Courthouse, on Constitution Avenue, just a short walk from the Capitol. This fact terrified the former prosecutors and other experts I talked with about how the trial might play out. Right-wing politicians, including Trump himself, have intimated violence if he is indicted.

Trump would of course attempt to make the proceedings a carnival of grievance, a venue for broadcasting conspiracy theories about his enemies. The trial could thus supply a climactic flash point for an era of political violence. Like the Capitol on January 6, the courthouse could become a magnet for paramilitaries. With protesters and counterprotesters descending on the same locale, the occasion would tempt street warfare.

The prospect of such a spectacle fills Merrick Garland with dread, his friends say. Indeed, for much of his tenure he’s been attacked by critics who claim he lacks the fortitude to meet the moment, or to take on an adversary like Trump. Members of the House committee charged with examining the events of January 6 have publicly taunted Garland for moving tentatively when compared with their own aggressive and impeccably stage-managed hearings. Representative Adam Schiff has complained, “I think there’s a real desire on the part of the attorney general, for the most part, not to look backward.” Privately, even President Joe Biden has grumbled about the plodding pace of Garland’s investigations

Another ‘arrests of the traitors is coming’ thread? Snooze.

I don’t care if Trump is indicted. It would make the way for DeSantis. Fine with me. But isn’t he being investigated now too?
 
So far, the notion of political warfare has trumped the notion that no one is above the law.

The DOJ was compromised by Donald Trump and it/our democracy won't survive if it considers how a Trump indictment will look politically.

The notion of political warfare wouldn't exist without corruption.
 
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Another ‘arrests of the traitors is coming’ thread? Snooze.

I don’t care if Trump is indicted. It would make the way for DeSantis. Fine with me. But isn’t he being investigated now too?
I'd gladly take Douche sanitary over Trump. He doesn't have the cult of personality like orangutan and has actual real degrees. Sure, he's a whackadoodle but as a president, he'd be a cuck federally speaking. The country ain't Florida and he knows it.
 
Bro, everyone glossed over most of your Herman Wouk level post.
Sad. It is an excellent read and lays out what is happening currently with an evidence-based prediction on what may come next.

Given how much people purport to care about politics on this forum, it perplexes me why people would choose not to be as informed as possible.
 
I'd gladly take Douche sanitary over Trump. He doesn't have the cult of personality like orangutan and has actual real degrees. Sure, he's a whackadoodle but as a president, he'd be a cuck federally speaking. The country ain't Florida and he knows it.
Wow lots of name calling. Someone’s mad.
 
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Sad. It is an excellent read and lays out what is happening currently with an evidence-based prediction on what may come next.

Given how much people purport to care about politics on this forum, it perplexes me why people would choose not to be as informed as possible.
Because it isn’t facts. It’s someone’s opinion. That’s of interest only if you share it.

I’ll bet you 100 dollars right now that he isn’t indicted federally before 2024. Deal?
 
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