And so, we need to start asking ourselves “Why”? And change the system. Trump should have faced consequences a long time ago.
Besides the obvious fraud, that is his business model.
Extortion of Zelensky
Seditious conspiracy
Inciting a riot
An attempted coup
An attempt to coerce a Secretary of State to find 11,000 votes.
Misappropriation of classified and Top Secret documents from the United States Government. The man is a walking time bomb when it comes to national security.
I could NOT care less if he was a former President of the USA. He needs locked down and up NOW
I’m not going to shit on those who are trying to do the right thing. It’s a shame if our system is so corrupt and ruined that the right thing is impossible, but I’m all for trying. They say that no one is above the law. We shall see (we have seen…) if that’s true, or just more bullshit. But to those who are trying, history will remember your names.
The problem is that the U.S. doesn’t have laws in place to deal with a criminal president. We’ve always depended on norms, traditions and gentlemen’s agreements to govern how a president behaves. It was assumed that anyone who rose to that level would have at least some honor and a sense of the gravity of the position. Remember when some people said that Trump would change when he assumed the office? Six months later, the director of The Office of Government Ethics resigned when the department workload increased by 5,235%. 1
And yes, there is impeachment. But we found out that that doesn’t work if the majority of the president’s party is also without honor.
So here we are. Can we change the system? Possibly if the democrats could get the presidency, a supermajority in the House and over 67 senators. In today’s climate, with the republicans hell-bent on minority rule by any means necessary, that’s unlikely. And if the republicans get the trifecta, it will never happen and Nixon’s “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal” 2 will become the norm.
I honestly don’t know where we go from here. I hope that Trump is charged and convicted for at least the crimes he’s committed since he left office since it is not a norm or tradition that you don’t indict an ex-president. But since we’ve never had that battle, and it’s fraught with all the unprecedented Trump bullshit we’ve come to know, we’ll just have to wait and see.
I’ve been vacillating back and forth about whether or not TFG will ever even face charges. At the moment, I’m leaning towards “no”. But as others have said, I will be pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong.
All we’re missing now is for Garland to come out and say something along the lines of:
" Moving forward without charges was in the best interests of the country. Trump’s situation was a tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."
Garland will not say that. Garland was hired in part to restore the morale of DOJ after all Trump did, tried to do, and is trying to do to it. And the only way that will happen if Trump is successfully prosecuted.
So the that approach Ford used worked out so well didn’t it? Of course that move was dictated by Nixon and cohorts like Haig and Kissinger. The only way to take our country back from the terrorists trying to destroy it is to prosecute their leader to the fullest extent of the law, in just the manner any other citizen would be. This will not be the end of the process, it will only be the start of holding all public officials to the highest standard instead of the lowest.
Look, after the last 6 years we are all suffering severe PTSD (President Trump Specific Despair), and so will tend default to the assumption that evil will always win, and any hope we have for the world will be dashed against the rocks of disapointment in the next news cycle.
But nothing we have seen so far has been inconsistent with the concept that Garland is nvestigating Trump, but is just not being public about it, and is making sure to get everything completely locked down so that when it is made public it is clear that the prosecution isn’t politically motivated. Meanwhile recent events including a affidavit for a search that specifically mentions obstruction of justice, is evidence against the notion that.
If Garland was too scared of optics to touch Trump he wouldn’t have taken out a warrant to raid Trumps offices and if all he was interested in was getting the documents back he wouldn’t have mentioned obstruction in the affidavit.
Now there is still a lot we don’t know and it is possible that in the end Garland will decide in the end that prosecuting Trump is too much trouble, but what limited evidence we do have is pointing in the opposite direction.
I feel Garland was handed such a complete case by the archives he had no choice but to force the FBI to take action. Nothing the FBI has done (except executing the search warrant) warrants anything else than deep suspicion in regard to their allegiance. The Kavenaugh background check, Hillary’s mailserver on election eve, the total lack of action after Mueller, the “lost” phone records of the SS on 6/1; all point to an FBI that is completely on the Trump train. [From my POV, one could very well argue they are just weary in involving themselves in politics: I know I’m heavily biased]
Well then why invoke obstruction of justice in the affidavit? Why not just say, Trump has the documents illegally and we need to get them back.
The Kavenaugh background check, Hillary’s mailserver on election eve, the total lack of action after Mueller, the “lost” phone records of the SS on 6/1;
And how are these things Garland’s fault?
Again other than the PTSD thinking of “Trump always gets away so he’ll get away this time too” what evidence do you have that Garland is opposed to investigating Trump?
That’s not how I read The_Librarian’s post. I read it as saying that the FBI is team trump. I can’t parse any specific characterization of Garland from that single post, other than that his hands were tied about the raid. Even if he didn’t want to, Garland had to force the FBI to act because the case from the archives was so airtight, is how I read it.
I can’t disagree with the side-eye toward the FBI. I mean, the two people I scratch my head still have their jobs are Louis Dejoy and Christopher Wray. I get that Dejoy was dug in, and that bureaucratic process is moving along. Why is Wray still the head of the FBI? Can’t Biden just replace him?
I’m no Christopher Wray fan, either, but FBI directors are appointed for 10-year terms.
The reason for 10-year terms is intended to keep those in that position from swinging in partisan directions. It is meant to be a non-partisan job.
Unless Christopher Wray does something overtly partisan or illegal, Biden is not going to intervene and replace him. First, because Wray will not have given him a reason to; and second, because Biden is trying so hard to get us back to the norms of government before Trump.
I think Garland took an opportunity to express himself, I think he isn’t given much room for that by the practicalities in the agencies supposedly working for him.
And your evidence that contrary to any weaselly sense of self preservation Wray is actively opposing Garland to defend a man who almost fired him because he wasn’t loyal enough?
Come on, if the FBI was refusing to follow Garland’s directives someone would have leaked it to the media.
“Refusing”? No, I don’t think it is that open. More like: drown in red tape, botch, take sick days: any sabotage short of refusing. A career civil servant who’s reasonably senior can find a myriad ways of not actually doing what you ment, especially if his direct supervisor is in on it.
I don’t see how this can be ruled out. Of course we’re unlikely to ever find clear evidence of a slow-down.
But Trump has been out of the presidency for 18 months and at the time he left there were undeniably aspects of his conduct that merited FBI investigation. And we haven’t seen much evidence that such has occurred, up until this National Archives-forced-their-hand situation.
Perhaps if the Republic survives, one day enough memoirs by enough knowledgeable people will appear, in order to give us a better sense of what happened.