I disagree. Example: my dad, who is an optimist. He’s also a romantic cynic like most newspapermen worthy of the name, yet he remains, somehow, optimistic. I can’t imagine anyone meeting my dad and failing to notice his wide-ranging intelligence.
Not being an optimistic myself, I understand your feeling completely, and more often than not believe that anyone who doesn’t understand how terrible things are and that the trajectory is downward faster and faster is an infuriating idiot, but then there’s my dad. And I can easily think of others, the opposite of stupid, all of them.
I’ll concede the point, since I agree that criminal cases are usually expedited through the federal system (I’ve actually had one criminal case - and a few civil ones - in the Southern District of Florida. My one criminal case, like most of them, was a plea, and yeah, it probably only took about 5 months or so).
In all federal cases, Judges issue a trial date right away (state courts are usually different - a trial date typically comes after months of evidence review and negotiations), and when you ask for an extension of time, if it’s granted they’ll give you a new trial date with the extension. The end of the case is usually always set for some predetermined date - these things don’t get to just go on and on.
We’ll have to see if Trump’s team attempts the ol’ delay-delay-delay tactic with hundreds (thousands?) of filings of various motions–and if so, if Cannon, assuming she doesn’t recuse herself, plays the same ‘delays are necessary, let’s start with a Special Master’ game she did before.
But the great news is that even the conservative judges of the 11th Circuit have already ruled against her–and might well do so again should she try to institute delays.
I would make a distinction between the hopeful and optimists.
The hopeful says, “we can fix this.”
The optimist says, “someone will fix it.” Optimists don’t realize how much work we are doing to drag their asses along and then they say, “see? It all worked out.” They’re children on Xmas morning seeing all the presents under the tree and screaming about Santa and not noticing their exhausted parents on the sofa.
An optimist will try to fix something and believes that they’ll succeed. A pessimist might still try to fix something because they don’t know what else to do, but they don’t think it will work.
The whole “optimist=happy lazy idiot” definition sounds like something you made up that the rest of the world doesn’t share. It sounds like you’re assuming all optimism is blind optimism. (Which does somewhat match your definition.)
A lot of the ‘Garland can do no wrong’ sentiment of the past 2+ years has come, I believe, from a wish to just make the whole ugly situation go away. A belief that Garland, from day one of his tenure as AG, has been planning meticulously to bring Trump et al to justice can be very comforting in that regard.
(Others holding that Garland is on Top of It sentiment, I’ll concede, may have genuine feelings of reverence for Garland, rather than just wanting to ‘leave it to’ him.)
But what we’ve seen so far: namely Trump (and Meadows and Johnson and Scott Perry and the rest) walking around, happy and free for all this time, has been dispiriting to all: the hopeful, the optimistic, and the pessimistic.
It just occurred to me that when this thread first started, the classified documents weren’t a thing yet. The FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago was a few weeks after the OP was posted.
At the time of the OP, there were other crimes we were hoping Trump would be held accountable for. The phone call looking for votes in Georgia, for example. Inciting the January 6th insurrection, for another.
The complaint of the OP was that Garland was never going to pursue any of that. Has there been any progress made on those fronts?
It depends on what you mean by “progress”. Jack Smith was investigating both the Georgia call and the J6 insurrection (which involved both the false elector scheme and the riot). The Georgia thing might play out in state court (and speculation is that an indictment on that is months away). Not sure about the other thing. But it’s not like there hasn’t been any pursuit.
But Garland assigned Smith to look into it. Does it only count if Garland personally tracks down every lead, and puts the child-sized hand cuffs on the orangess himself?
It might in the end get handled on the state end, but from Atamasama’s post
So it hasn’t been ruled off limits by Garland.
I personally think that it is highly unlikely that Trump will be prosecuted for the J6 violence, not because he is being protected by Garland, but just because, unless there is some additional evidence I don’t know about that directly connects Trump to the proud boys, it will be difficult to prove his connection beyond a reasonable doubt. Heck I hate Trump with every fiber of my being, and even I am not absolutely positive that he intended for his followers to break in to the capitol, and not just a bombastic call for protest. Preponderance of the evidence, sure, but not beyond a reasonable doubt.
The false elector scam is a much better line of attack.
Smith was appointed last month to oversee not only the Justice Department’s Mar-a-Lago investigation but also aspects of Trump’s scramble to stay in power — including his efforts in Georgia and Nevada — and the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
I forgot that he was also investigating Nevada regarding the election shenanigans Trump tried to pull.
As you can see from the above, Garland has Jack going after everything Trump-related.
I thought for a long time it was his (Garland’s) plan to run out the clock (Trump dead or President).
Recent developments have shown me to be wrong. I think the DoJ deserves a modicum of credit for actually bringing charges. (Albeit late)
Maybe this was how long it took to clean house in Barr/Rosen’s department.
Whether a decision about Trump’s culpability for Jan. 6 could have come any earlier is unclear. The delays in examining that question began before Garland was even confirmed. Sherwin, senior Justice Department officials and Paul Abbate, the top deputy to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, quashed a plan by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office to directly investigate Trump associates for any links to the riot, deeming it premature, according to five individuals familiar with the decision. Instead, they insisted on a methodical approach — focusing first on rioters and going up the ladder.
When we talked about the morons with their heads in the sand who have an irrational hate for Garland and deserve to eat crow when the indictments come out, you’re one of the people I had in mind.
You on the other hand, I have respect for.
And as for griping about how long it has taken, I was griping too.
This portion of the article does not explain Garland’s inaction for over a year–it merely lists some DOJ officials who, like Garland, didn’t care to start investigating Trump in the wake of 1/6/21.
Garland was the boss. Nothing could have stopped him from overruling the ‘let’s leave Trump and the planners alone’ crowd at DOJ—had he wanted to do so.
He didn’t.
Moreover, Garland was disingenuous, repeatedly, as in this pronouncement given at the one-year-anniversary mark:
Sure enough: full accountings don’t suddenly materialize if you’ve declined to investigate.
The damning fact about Garland revealed by the Post research is that all those who said from the beginning that ‘Garland is on top of this’ and ‘those criticizing don’t realize how long investigations take’ and the like, were simply wrong. It wasn’t taking a long time because investigations require time (and yes, they do)—it was taking a long time because Garland wasn’t doing anything about Trump and his co-conspirators. (Aided and abetted by many at DOJ and the FBI, as the article reveals.)
It’s a damning portrait of, at best, timidity. (On both Garland’s and Wray’s parts.) There’s no way of knowing how profoundly the case against the insurrection-planners has been harmed by this delay–at the least, it gives them a defense (of witness testimony being unreliable due to the passage of time, among other things).
I think they were both guilty of criticism. I’m glad Garland eventually decided to put a real bulldog on the case, and we’re seeing results. That should have happened earlier in my opinion.
Saying Garland needs to be fired is just plain stupid, though, unless you’re a Trump supporter. (Well, no, it would still be stupid, just for different reasons.)