I think I got this from the Congressional Research Service, because I tend to bring up this issue in online dialog with MAGAs:
Although there is no established or accepted definition, a congressional criminal referral is a non-binding communication to the DOJ, made either by a congressional committee or by individual Members of Congress, that specifically articulates evidence supporting the possible commission of a crime and asks the DOJ to either conduct further investigation or otherwise pursue the matter. While congressional criminal referrals often involve offenses against Congress (for example, lying to Congress or obstructing a congressional investigation), a committee can make a referral whenever an investigation has uncovered evidence of possible criminal wrongdoing.
[bolding mine]
I see one conspicuous challenge facing the House GOP in this strategy. I’m not sure there’s precedent for “Just LOOK at him! What more do you need?!?” in American jurisprudence.
That’s not the point. They know the referrals will go nowhere. They just want to be able to say “Look how corrupt Biden is! We’ve sent 34 criminal referrals to his Justice Department and they’ve ignored every one of them!”
The rubes (and, sadly, many undecided voters) will never learn that those referrals have zero basis in reality.
Now I’m not up on all the legal complicated technicalities, but when you when you submit a referral to the DOJ do you have to specify what crime you are accusing him of, or can you just put down “criming”?
Talked to my cousin this morning and mentioned that some GOP house members are not going on the GOP retreat. Ya know where they do a lot of drinking, dealing and commit crimes.
But privately, some Republicans have complained about the venue choice. Sources said Speaker Mike Johnson selected the Greenbrier Resort because it was “family friendly,” in a break from past retreats which have taken place in sunny Florida – the preferred location of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
I can’t find it right now, but a follow-up report also mentioned that a big part of the get-together was Mike Johnson giving a speech about declining church attendance.
The exact business model of Texas-based ETT is murky. Its mission statement reads in part: “ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies.”
I couldn’t have gone three questions without responding with “I am having trouble understanding the question. Perhaps you would be clearer if you removed your lips from Trump’s ass before speaking?”.
Cool. Send off the referrals and pretend you did something, and let the people who actually work and know how the law works ignore them. Then do something that actually needs to be done.
And this is yet another example of every accusation is a confession. Trump supporters are mentally incapable of grasping the concept of doing something nice for somebody for no material return. It wouldn’t even occur to them to pay for a family members bill because they’re short on money or something just to be nice. Everything is transactional with them. They’re thinking, such as it is, goes like this…
“Hey can I borrow $100 to cover the rent this month? I had a car break down/a medical emergency/my stove stopped working and I had to call repairman etc.”
“Sure I can do that. What’s in it for me??”
It’s just another chance to grift someone. The fact that it’s supposed to be a family member or a friend is completely irrelevant to them.
And of course Garland in his infinite wisdom to appear pointlessly nonpartisan will, of course, either ignore this completely or slow walk it to its inevitable nothingburger conclusion. And Republicans will continue to demonize him because they don’t care about facts or the truth and partisanship is just another tool in their bag of democracy undermining tactics.
My apologies, I know replying to oneself is generally frowned upon but I’ve still been thinking on this and I realized I could have made my point much more succinctly.
The word ‘altruism’ does not exist in the MAGA lexicon.
