And even if it had- so trump is convicted of a felony. he already was convicted of 34 of them, iirc. And there were shirts and signs “I am voting for the Felon”. Does anyone think 35 felonies would be the tipping point? "Oh that’s it- 34 felonies- that’s no problem, but 35! Nope, not voting for him!.
I even asked this question in
My final post-
“Sure, all those are fine, but the real issue is the question I have asked and received no answer- Again I ask 'what “protection” could the DoJ do to keep trump from running?”
And it killed the thread. The Garland haters couldnt come up with a reply.
But not much happened to them, Sure they were fired, but (for example) Strzok sued and got $1.2Million, not to mention a juicy book deal and a professorship.
You wouldnt. That’s not news. But I was on one, and remember the evidence is one sided.
A Lafourche Parish cold case murder remains unsolved this week after a grand jury failed to indict a pair of suspects who were previously arrested in the case.
and here
and here
There has to be evidence enough to indict- not convict. Lower standard.
Re last post, in cases where the grand jury declined to indict, it is hard to know if the prosecutor may have hinted that the case was not strong.
Now, I can see that happening with Jack Smith. If Bondi ordered a federal prosecutor to seek an indictment the prosecutor personally thought was unfair, the grand jurors might sense this and not indict. It would be important for Bondi to find a competent prosecutor who was also a Trump true believer.
P.S. I suspect that a judge dismissing the case happens more often than a majority of the grand jury voting not to indict.
“Not much” happened to them, eh? Their careers were ruined, as was their privacy and peace of mind. Book deals and professorships don’t do anything to make up for that.
To me, it is grotesque to normalize persecution prosecutions. It strikes at the very heart of what this country was founded on. And this goes double for this statement:
If Trump decided to pardon himself, wouldn’t the charges be dismissed regardless (assuming of course that the pardon is allowed to stand, which, given that the matter would probably be ultimately ruled upon by the Supreme Court, seems very likely).
I think her (and my) main complaint about Garland is he timidly did nothing for almost 2 years until he was essentially shamed into action by the January 6th hearings. Maybe all the delays wouldn’t have been an issue if Garland himself hadn’t delayed longer than all the other delays combined.
Before Smith was appointed, I remember reading fairy tales posted here – possibly including by you – about how Garland was investigating all the low level Jan 6 defendents as groundwork for his case against Trump. That, of course, turned out to just be wishful thinking.
For both cases, the SOL has not expired but will soon. For Jan 6, 2021 + 5 years = Jan 6, 2026. For Docs case, lots of dates you could pick, but basically it would be around 2026 or 2027, certainly before he stops being President in 2029.
Only in fantasyland is there a way to recharge him with these crimes. Or differently, there might be a theoretical argument one could make, but in no reality will it work.
Assuming the SOL did not expire when the cases were dismissed, which I think the law says happened, there is just no way to toll (pause) the SOL clock at this point. There is no law to point to that says the SOL should be tolled. So you have to rely on fairness, and while it is an argument one can make and thus leaves open a theoretical possibility, it will not work and probably shouldn’t.
**I saw conflicting SOL for one crime - Conspiracy to commit a federal crime (18 U.S.C. 371), it’s either 5 or 10 years. Even if it were 10, I don’t think it changes the big picture. It’s over and it ended with a whimper.
Indeed. Aspenglow’s distaste for anyone daring to criticize Garland clearly influenced her post. If Garland had (via hiring Jack Smith or via some other prosecutor) begun proceedings against Trump a full year before he did—which he would have been abundantly justified in doing—then the Roberts Court would NOT have been able to delay the course of justice as they did. Aspenglow quite properly cites the “unnecessary 7-month delay created by the Supreme Court on the immunity issue.” What she fails to acknowledge is that if Garland had moved faster and the case had come before the Court in the 2022-23 term, then they would not have been able to carry their obviously-strategic delay into the 2023-24 term. The fact that they were able to issue their ruling so close to the 2024 election season was entirely due to Garland’s hesitation (which likely would have never been disturbed were it not for the House hearings).
The “explanation” is incorrect. The pretext that ‘all the Jan 6 rioters must be processed first’ was transparently baseless. Garland could easily have started talking to Meadows and the rest of the White House witnesses months (or years) earlier than, in the event, he did.
I notice that neither of you (nor any other ‘Garland is above criticism’ advocate) has attempted to answer the points
and
Why do I care about Garland being held accountable for his hesitation and delays? Because it’s important that his apparent disinclination to hold a President—and his immediate circle—accountable for election interference NOT be promoted as a DOJ standard. Of course all norms are out the window until the nation rids itself of Trump and Trumpism, but it’s possible to envision a future in which a majority of Americans decide that their flirtation with fascism wasn’t what they wanted, after all.
If that day comes, it will be crucial to assert the rule of law again. And doing so will include an understanding that no one is above the law—and that this principle must be upheld with something more than lip-service.
Why don’t we split the difference and say however fast Trump throws Garland in jail is a good baseline for how fast Garland could have thrown Trump in jail?
I work in academia and have already started to see non-US professors refer to the American political situation as graduate student recruitment tactic. Specifically, advertisements of open positions for Master’s or PhD students are specifically pitched at US-based students who want to leave the country and/or non-US-based students who are seeking alternatives to American schools. Here’s an excerpt from one post I came across today on LinkedIn:
In the light of recent tragic results of elections in the United States, I am issuing a short statement for potential PhD course candidates, especially of non-US nationality.
If you have obtained your Master Degree, or are in the process of finishing, and planned to continue to PhD, but are worried of the events following recent elections, and consider moving from the US to a different country, perhaps consider doing a PhD in Japan.
If you are self-sustainable, meaning, you have sufficient means to sustain yourself financially, I can accept you for a PhD in…
He’s essentially asking for access to the henhouse after the foxes are through with it. If this case goes through, it will be after Trump takes office and delays while his minions make the (im)proper revisions.
Her brief order blocking the Justice Department on Tuesday does not distinguish between the two volumes said to be in Smith’s report – one dealing with the mishandling of classified documents probe and the other covering the investigation into 2020 election interference. Trump’s lawyers have said that the arguments against publication of the report applied to both volumes, pointing in part to the overlap in evidence.
