Giving Trump Breathing Room: DOJ's Delay In Investigating January 6 Coup Leaders

 

 

"We pursue justice without fear or favor."  -- Attorney General Merrick Garland, on numerous occasions, on the Justice Department's role in upholding the rule of law. 

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Some of us gave AG Garland the benefit of the doubt for many months that the Justice Department was investigating the Malignant Loser for the January 6 coup attempt, while others warned that the lack of action we were seeing was the reality, not a cover for a robust investigation of the Malignant Loser and his coup plotters.  The doubters were right all along.

If you haven't already taken time to read the Pulitzer- worthy Washington Post exposé by Carol Leonnig and Aaron Davis on why the Department delayed investigating the coup leaders, please stop reading this and do so.  It reports on how key officials in the Department indeed feared pursuing justice in the name of caution, restoring public trust in the Department, and not appearing to be "partisan."  Garland's timidity was reinforced by others named in the Post article, including his own deputy AG Lisa Monaco, FBI Director Chris Wray, and the acting U.S. Attorney for DC, Michael Sherwin -- but the buck stops with Garland, who could've foreseen the peril in allowing the Malignant Loser to evade justice for so long but resisted (not to mention allowing statutes of limitations to expire for other crimes the Malignant Loser likely committed). 

History will not judge this leadership kindly.  

That's also the judgement of Jennifer Taub, who concludes her excellent piece in Washington Monthly on how "Garland's Inaction on January 6 Gave Trump Breathing Room" thusly:

Current and former DOJ officials urged him not to delay. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of a select committee to investigate the January 6 attack, many of us wrongly assumed the DOJ was investigating Trump on a parallel course, even without the appointment of a special counsel. Plenty of evidence merited a special counsel’s probe into Trump that could get underway even as individual insurrectionists were identified, arrested, and prosecuted. As Justice Louis Brandeis wrote in Other People’s Money, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.” And with Garland taking his sweet time illuminating the festering sore, is it any wonder it continued to grow? Not holding Trump accountable emboldens him further. After Garland let the clock run out on statutes of limitation for the obstruction set out in the Mueller Report and the hush money payments for which Michael Cohen went to prison and blocked the investigation into Trump’s role in the fake electors and insurrection, is it any wonder that Trump decided to hold onto those highly classified documents? 

Garland may end up causing the Justice Department to become what he feared most, a discredited political actor. By the time he appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith in November, 2022—something he should have done after his March 2021 swearing-in—the die was cast. Trump had already launched his bid for the presidency in 2024. Given this late date, any related indictment will come well into Trump’s campaign for the Republican nomination and any trial, quite possibly, after his second inaugural in 2025 when the 47^th president won’t dawdle and will end the federal case against himself.

"Without fear or favor" my ass.

At some point when it won't disrupt the ongoing Special Counsel investigations and prosecutions, this AG and others involved in ignoring or slow- walking justice for the Malignant Loser need to go.

(Photo:  Patrick Semansky/ AP)

Trump Under Investigation By DOJ

 

As was noted yesterday (see below), and as reported in the Washington Post, the Justice Department is focusing a grand jury on the efforts of the Malignant Loser to attempt to overturn the 2020 election.  Here are salient passages from that blockbuster Post report:

The Justice Department is investigating President Donald Trump’s actions as part of its criminal probe of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to four people familiar with the matter.

Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.

In addition, Justice Department investigators in April received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, according to two people familiar with the matter. That effort is another indicator of how expansive the Jan. 6 probe had become, well before the high-profile, televised House hearings in June and July on the subject.

(Ed.: as we and others have noted, DOJ investigations and prosecutions aren't 60- minute Law and Order episodes;  they unspool slowly, in secret without public drama, as the article goes on to note.)

Federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice Department. Many end without criminal charges. The lack of observable investigative activity involving Trump and his White House for more than a year after the Jan. 6 attack has fueled criticism, particularly from the left, that the Justice Department is not pursuing the case aggressively enough.  [snip]

Many elements of the sprawling Jan. 6 criminal investigation have remained under wraps. But in recent weeks the public pace of the work has increased, with a fresh round of subpoenas, search warrants and interviews. Pence’s former chief of staff, Marc Short, and lawyer, Greg Jacob, appeared before the grand jury in downtown Washington in recent days, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Both men declined to comment.

The article notes the Malignant Loser's primary areas of vulnerability:

There are two principal tracks of the investigation that could ultimately lead to additional scrutiny of Trump, two people familiar with the situation said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The first centers on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceeding, the type of charges already filed against individuals who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and on two leaders of far-right groups, Stewart Rhodes and Henry “Enrique” Tarrio, who did not breach the Capitol but were allegedly involved in planning the day’s events.

The second involves potential fraud associated with the false-electors scheme or with pressure Trump and his allies allegedly put on the Justice Department and others to falsely claim that the election was rigged and votes were fraudulently cast.  (our emphasis)

Keep in mind also that the Georgia grand jury led by Fulton County DA Fani Willis is running on a parallel track looking at the Malignant Loser's criminal efforts to pressure Georgia officials to "find him" enough votes to win the state, a request that was helpfully recorded.

In the meantime, Attorney General Garland is trying to make it as clear as he can that the Malignant Loser isn't exempt from prosecution:

 

We know there are many out there that have a healthy skepticism about AG Garland's willingness to ultimately press charges against the Malignant Loser.  He's taken a lot of angry criticism, generally from folks who are impatient and/or who don't know how the Department operates, especially in high profile cases.  But with these recently reported developments, we should at least afford him some slack, while the wheels of justice grind.   

Attorney General Garland Announces Voting Rights Actions

 

Attorney General Merrick Garland today on what the Justice Department is planning to do to defend voting rights in the face of state Republican voter suppression laws: