DoJ subpoenas have been issued to members of the last administration. Has Garland been jolted awake? Will the indictments start to roll out, or is this just a ploy to mute the complaints about DoJ inaction? I cannot help but think nothing will happen.
No. Garland’s always been awake. He had a massively hollowed out DOJ to start with and is currently heading up the largest RICO-style investigation ever undertaken by any DOJ. He’s been running in a classic fashion, which is something many people seem ignorant of.
He has simply now chosen to run at least part of his investigation “overt,” as opposed to “covert.” That’s all that has changed.
A campaign official for President Donald Trump, who appears to be at the meeting where 11 Arizona Republicans falsely declared themselves the state’s presidential electors, was subpoenaed Wednesday by the Department of Justice, the Washington Post reported.
People who are in a hurry, afraid that the mid-term elections will mean an end to the congressional inquiry, should remember that the Democratic leadership of the DOJ will be in place for (at least) another 2-1/2 years.
Their job is to collect and present good solid evidence (which, incidentally, takes a good amount of time). The outcome of prosecutions is not up to them.
What’s the minimum conviction that would prevent someone from running for President, or any elected office (not sure if it may differ)? Misdemeanor? Felony?
I think that some of this change may be due to the televised Congressional hearings. After you are publicly exposed like Jeffrey Clark was yesterday, you might be very motivated to destroy any incriminating documents that you still have. So the DoJ may be motivated to serve a search warrant early that morning, to capture any such documents before they can ‘disappear’.
I think this is a great point. In fact, this makes the most sense why they moved when they did.
It’s also worth noting that the DOJ had to have already had sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant from a federal judge, indicating that their investigation into Clark – who is a direct link to a conspiracy with Trump – is well underway.
No conviction does this. See Eugene Debs who famously ran an election from his jail cell. He was actually convicted of sedition before the 1920 election.
Only the Senate may disqualify an individual from running for office, as punishment following conviction in an impeachment trial.
Histoey is full of people who really should have destroyed evidence that they did not, because they didn’t think they’d be searched, didn’t understand its significance, thought it was hidden sufficiently, thought it was destroyed when it wasn’t, or thought they needed to save it for some other purpose.
And this is a guy who didn’t realize this is exactly how warrant searches are carried out if you’re a target: At the break of dawn, unexpected with the element of surprise and intended to be a little humiliating.
He also didn’t realize there was such a thing as electronics-sniffing dogs.
That’s one mechanism, but the 14th Amendment, section 3 provides for another. It’s never made explicit how one determines who has engaged in insurrection, but presumably a conviction of such in a criminal court would suffice.
But yeah, anything short of insurrection or a conviction in impeachment would just leave it up to the voters.
It’s fascinating, but true. You generally can’t even get a job as a janitor at a dog pound if a background check turns up a criminal record of any kind, or even just an arrest record. But it’s no impediment to getting a job as a politician at any level, including President of the United States. In fact, you can commit serious crimes while president, including crimes of sedition, and still stand a good chance of winning a second term.