We might be using different definitions of “real steps”. (There also might be a difference in the level of emotional involvement)
The step I would define as “real” would be to end the “investigation” part and get a warrant for his arrest.
You might notice there have been some other “investigations” by the DoJ that never really resulted in anything, so as long as we’re still in the “investigation” part of the proceedings I won’t be holding my breath.
Why stop there? Why not whine about the fact that he’s not in prison for life already if you’re going to be ridiculous? If you’re going to be pants-on-head stupid just go all out!
It has been, literally, years. What is a reasonable timeframe to move from investigation to indictment?
If they are careful and spend 20 years, total, investigating, then they are historians looking into allegations about the dead, not prosecutors.
If they rush and botch it, the consequences individually and nationally are dire.
So just to calibrate expectations, what is reasonable in a real-world context?
It has been slow, definitely. I think there has been a lot of criticism about that, I know there are reasons for caution but I’m also somewhat frustrated.
But there’s a difference between a slow pace and saying that nothing meaningful has happened, and that there is no way Trump will be indicted or charged or arrested or convicted. I mean, this thread title is already embarrassingly inaccurate. 
I will say that there don’t seem to be any political excuses left for delays anymore. There’s a lot of evidence that’s already public. The midterms are over. I’m hoping that with this special prosecutor we see an acceleration. But we’ll have to see. I’m expecting something big within a month.
I wasn’t being sarcastic (well, in my heart I might have been), but it’s also a genuine question. I don’t know what a reasonable time frame for an investigation of this scale. 2–3 years might be normal, or even 5. I know some of the RICO stuff takes forever. On the other hand, this sphere seems extremely well documented, and its prominence must surely push it to the head of the queue. So I just don’t know what’s reasonable. I know I want him in jail as of January, 2020, but I also want a pony.
I will be honest and say I’m not qualified to give an informed answer. I can give my opinion (and I have) but of course that is of dubious value. 
I think @Aspenglow has explained that these things take a long time if they have any chance of being successful. And of course, this is unprecedented in US history.
Thanks.
I’m no longer responding in this thread because I only see doing that if it’s productive, and in this thread, I generally don’t believe it is.
However, in response to your ‘@’ page, some final thoughts:
As you point out, this is an unprecedented situation in the history of jurisprudence. Not only is the DOJ for the first time ever prosecuting a former president of the United States, but they are establishing case law precedent upon which courts going forward are meant to rely. So it’s important for them to get it right.
Moreover, they have additional, legitimate concerns about whether pissing off 25% of Americans who may go nuts over said prosecutions is overall in the best interests of the country. I believe they have decided that it is, but again, proceeding carefully and weighing all potential outcomes makes sense.
Additionally, the passage of time, together with the presentation of the very effective January 6th Committee hearings have worked their magic: Even some formerly rabid Trump supporters have cooled their jets a little over the object of their slavering affection. The indictments make more sense to some of them now. This is good for the overall health of our country’s democracy.
And admit it: It’s been fun watching Republicans tear themselves apart over whether they can yet safely abandon Trump, hasn’t it? Had charges been brought earlier, Ron DeSantis would already have his nomination all sewn up. I’m glad he doesn’t.
Lastly, I’m sick of hearing the old refrain, “If it was you or me, we’d already be in jail!” Yes, we would. But we’re not former presidents, are we? We don’t have valid if spurious claims to “executive privilege” or “attorney-client privilege” or “subject to the Presidential Records Act” over testimony or documents, do we? We don’t have the resources to stick these issues in front of the courts for months and months and months as Trump does, do we? Trump’s stock-in-trade is delay, and to expect he won’t make use of the tactic every chance he gets is simply naive or stupid or both.
Despite all obstacles and what some people have concluded, these cases have proceeded extremely quickly.
The appointment of Jack Smith is massively encouraging to me. Not only is he exactly the right man for the job, he’s a quick study and known for his dogged, laser-like focus on his cases. He’s not afraid to bring charges even if he might lose. Over his career, he’s successfully brought indictments in public corruption cases against both Republicans and Democrats. He’s not fighting against a corrupt Attorney General or Assistant Deputy Director of the FBI as Mueller was.
Jack Smith is like a racehorse where the starting gun has just gone off. I can’t wait to watch him go! I give him to early in the new year – why not have one final stress-free holiday with the family? – but I won’t be surprised if charges fall sooner.
Well done, Merrick Garland.
Agreed. It doesn’t matter how careful investigators have been if their work doesn’t result in indictment.
We can never know the level of good faith behind an investigation (by the DOJ or any other law-enforcement agency). But we can know whether or not an investigation has produced a verifiable result: indictment.
Which, to people of at least average intelligence, does not equate to claims that ‘he should be in prison already’ and the like.
Meanwhile:
Of course this is just one official speaking–even if he was the Acting Chief of the FBI counterpart to the the unit Jack Smith has been ballyhooed as leading. And it’s difficult to believe that Cortese would simply have made this up out of whole cloth. (Doing so would trash his own reputation, of course.)
So Garland’s savvy about the media pays off: he’s got a guy the media will (and does) trumpet as a Tough Guy who Gets Results. But that same guy has a history of…deciding not to prosecute.
We shall see. I like:
That would be wonderful (and good for the nation).
The quoted article:
Except that I will remind the audience again that Trump continues breaking laws on an ongoing basis and has no interest in stopping. So if the first indictment is a swing and a miss there are still plenty of other existing things to fall back on while Trump continues to carpet bomb us with even more under the apparent theory that if he just breaks laws openly and notoriously he is forever immune from consequences. This approach has gotten him a lot farther than it ever should have but the only way he keeps getting away with it forever is if this Justice Department and all other future Justice Departments (and all other State prosecutors and and and…) decline to prosecute the avalanche of crimes he perpetuates. “They won’t come after me because I’m special!” may keep him warm at night but it’s not a strategy I’d want to rely on.
It doesn’t matter if they indict if they don’t convict. In fact, an indictment and acquittal would be far worse than no indictment at all.
They can indict a ham sandwich in an afternoon. That doesn’t mean anything if they don’t get a conviction.
It does equate to showing impatience. You at least think that he should be indicted already. If he was indicted, you’d be complaining that the trial hasn’t occurred yet. And when he is acquitted, you’d complain that the prosecution flubbed the case (which they certainly would if they rushed it.)
Yeah, how many indictments and acquittals can Trump get under his belt before even Democrats start to think that it’s politically motivated?
I mean, I’m impatient. But I’m trying not to be.
Many commenters have talked about how important it it that they don’t “rush it” and botch it. I’m curious about why those of you using this phrase think that will happen, and what “rushing it” means in this context. This isn’t baking bread, this is investigating & assembling evidence. Why does that have to be done slowly? This is the DOJ, with a huge staff & pretty much infinite resources. It’s been 2 years. From out here in the wilderness it sure looks like the appointment of a special prosecutor is just another tactic to delay and avoid actually taking action (indictment). So I too would love to hear what constitutes a reasonable timeline.
It’s like putting a million piece puzzle together. It doesn’t take a long time because you’re being slow. It takes a long time because there’s so much to do.
Why would the DOJ employ a “tactic to delay”? That’s a bizarre conspiracy theory. Trump’s teams have used delaying tactics because they are hoping that they can delay prosecution long enough for Republicans to take over or some other change in their favor. The DOJ doesn’t have to delay; they don’t have to do anything at all. I find it amusing that you call it “just another tactic to delay” as if that’s what they’ve been doing. 
Just to repeat… That don’t need “tactics” to delay. If they want to wait, they just wait. The same way they were openly waiting until after the midterms to proceed in order to not seem like they were influencing the elections. And if they don’t want to act, they don’t act. There’s no need for “tactics”.
Look at this rationally. They don’t want to influence the election, so things are quiet. Almost the moment the elections are over, they appoint a special prosecutor. You see this as an attempt to delay. That’s silly. Obviously, what has happened is that now that the elections are out of the way, they feel free to proceed, so now they’re siccing their attack dog on him.
I don’t know, I never had much faith in Garland’s DoJ and I have less now. The concept of a delaying tactic makes sense to me: spend years building a case until Republicans take over and replace you.
Apparently two years isn’t long enough to bring an indictment. Who’s to say four years is long enough if two years is not?
The point of the the delay is to run out the clock to maintain the facade of the “justice” system. Widespread acknowledgment of the reality would be annoying, after all.
This requires no conspiracy; it is the system working as normal.
Because running out the clock so this investigation dies with Trump, or at least with his political influence, would be in the best interests of Democrats and Republicans. As Aspenglow noted:
And so far, they are just waiting… waiting for the J6 committee to finish, waiting for the midterms, waiting for the special prosecutor to get up to speed. Another year, or less, and they will be waiting for the 2024 elections to be over.
As I said, they’ve had 2 years, staff & resources, so the question of just how long this should take isn’t at all silly, it’s a perfectly valid question. How long before people lose interest & enthusiasm for indicting Trump disappears in the interest of “moving forward”? At which point we get a replay of the Mueller report wherein it’s clear Trump should be indicted but not gonna happen.
Please don’t cherry pick my posts and distort my meanings. Nothing I said in that post implied that I thought the DOJ was running out the clock.
I pointed out that the DOJ has many more considerations in proceeding with their prosecutions, particularly with respect to the January 6th insurrection case, due to the fact that Trump is a former president. There are a host of thorny concerns they must evaluate before making any final decisions. The part you left out of that quote should not be disregarded:
(Emphasis mine.)
One of our board rules is that altering a quote for the purpose of changing its meaning is a no-no. I’m not acting as a mod here as this is the Pit, but you should know this is bad practice. And personally, I don’t appreciate it in the least.
Now, to your assertion that the DOJ is just waiting: Nothing could be further from the truth. The documents case is moving right along. I’m confident we’ll see indictments on this very soon.
The January 6th insurrection case is much more complex. Trump will continue to assert his bogus “executive privilege” over every witness, he will throw every motion he can to slow it all down. He’s been successful to date – and will continue to be, to some extent – because while you may not appreciate this rather important fact, the DOJ is blazing a brand new trail. They are establishing precedent and case law that will be relied upon in the future for any similar situations. We’ve never tried a former president before for actions he took while he was president. This is a fact that appears to be lost on many. A former judge like Merrick Garland is thinking about this in every decision he makes. Don’t mistake proceeding carefully for not proceeding at all.
Let’s talk about staff, since you brought it up. The January 6th investigation alone involves literally thousands of potential perpetrators. It’s not just the former president and his aides at the top, who are all problematic enough. It’s all those dipshits that insurrected on the Capitol grounds. Every single one of them requires extensive investigation and prosecution. Thousands of man hours, if not hundreds of thousands. In short, DOJ is understaffed for an operation of this scope. They asked for additional FBI agents and US attorneys. Those requests went unfulfilled.
I’ve been involved in state-level cases (not as a lawyer, to be clear) with complex charges and only one defendant, not the president. They’ve taken more than 2 years to get to trial. This is not unusual.
Don’t make the mistake of comparing the Mueller investigation with this one. For Mueller: Corrupt Attorney General, corrupt president in charge of everything, corrupt Deputy Director of the FBI. Not allowed to bring charges against Trump. All those things are different with Smith.
You seem to have missed that not one single thing in the current investigations has slowed down because of the appointment of the new special counsel. He was appointed last Friday. He was substituted in as counsel of record in the documents case on Monday. Yesterday, there was a hearing set for arguments in the DOJ’s appeal re the special master in the documents case. That hearing went forward as scheduled. No delay.
I get that it’s a lot to keep track of. But these investigations are proceeding just fine.
I didn’t alter or distort anything, I quoted a single sentence from you comment. A sentence that provides one reason why the DOJ might want to run out the clock. Which was MY assertion, and I didn’t suggest otherwise.
Incidentally, if pissing off 25% of Americans is an actual concern in deciding whether or not to indict Trump, which is what your quote seems to be saying, that is much worse than any delay tactics and it makes Garland an abject coward.
So you keep believing, and I’ll keep waiting, and in the meantime maybe you could put together a rule book on what portion of a comment must be included in a quote because I could swear I see single sentences used all the time.
Just some stuff from the top of my head:
(All WAG stuff, but no wild conspiracies needed)
No conspiracy, no malicious stuff; just practical considerations for career officials.
That seems likely to me, too. And given our species’ talent for motivated reasoning, I’d guess that many of them have convinced themselves that slow-walking any indictment of Trump or of GOP elected officials, past or present, is “best for the nation.”
I don’t agree, of course. The perception that some people are at least semi-officially “above the law” has been disastrous. It’s bred contempt for the law in general and a willingness to commit unlawful acts in particular. Too many GOP figures have gone on record advocating for such things as deliberate election intimidation and ‘seizing voting machines’ and the like. And if Trump, Meadows, Brooks, and others had faced legal consequences months ago, I suspect that many GOP officials would be less free with their ‘winning is all that matters’ advice.