To be fair, both did suspend his posting privileges on 1/6:
Jan. 6, 2021: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” Mr. Trump tweets, with an accompanying post to Facebook. Other posts include a video telling his supporters to “go home now,” while also offering encouragement such as “I know how you feel.” Twitter and Facebook both eventually remove some of the posts and say the president will be suspended at least until the next day.
To be fair, this news story, which is dated January 6th (but was also updated on January 7th), does detail Twitter temporarily locking (for 12 hours) Trump’s account on the afternoon or evening of 1/6/21, though that was apparently after he posted a video continuing to claim the election was stolen (and in which he told his supporters, who had stormed the Capitol, to “go home”).
This is a bipartisan commission seeking factual information. There is no “accused” side - there’s just what happened.
But if you insist these hearings are a prosecution, then I can easily think of a similar hearing where there was zero representation on the accused side: Who was on the various Benghazi hearings defending Hillary Clinton?
I was going to quote all of the calls to violence in that same speech, but it’s such a rambling mess. The President of the United States - as this committee is demonstrating - was fomenting revolution. The fact that he threw in one use of “peacefully” (as he also said that “if you don’t fight, you won’t have a country anymore”) is the equivalent of saying that you can be exonerated for perjury because you had your fingers crossed.
…
I’ve got a kid to take to the pool, so I’m not going to bother to continue.
I don’t take republicans complaining about quotes being taken out of context after they made their entire 2012 convention theme about Obama’s “you didn’t build that” quote being quoted totally out of context. In any case if the evidence presented so far can easily be refuted and denied what’s stopping Trump from volunteering to testify.
I would like to believe that Garland is just being careful and cautious, building his case as has been suggested. I don’t know enough about the process to support or refute that stand. But it does seem the DOJ is doing something but not enough. Why are those who have been revealed to have criminal liability not under arrest? This does baffle me, this happened more than a year and a half ago!
With that explanation of my personal views, I am wondering… and now outright hoping that this-
is the reason there has not been an overt investigation or any arrests. Perhaps Garland is much further along in his investigation than he would like anyone to know … and is waiting for a criminal referral to come from the committee so any arrests cannot be used to generate accusations against DOJ for acting for purely political purposes.
It would give him the cover of saying the arrests were the result of a referral from a congressional committee – certainly not out of any political motivation. If a referral is not forever and a day in coming, that may be the wisest course of action. But in any case, everyday that there is not observable progress in correcting the many grievous crimes attached to the coup attempt is a day when it is easier for me to view Merrick Garland as a chinless wimp who is not up to the job before him. There must be criminal indictments and they must occur before the mid-terms.
The perfectly logic sequence of events would be:
~ Formation of the Committee
~ Investigations by the Committee
~ Hearings revealing Committee’s findings
~ Criminal Referrals emanating from Committee
~ Department of Justice taking on a criminal investigation
~ DOJ charging, trying and convicting those guilty
But it does not have to follow that outline precisely. I think the DOJ is using politics to wait for a criminal referral in order to not appear political – which may make a little bit of sense but is just insane.
To further pursue this thought about the committee issuing criminal referrals, I also believe Chairman Thompson and others who have said anything to the effect of: “that is not decided yet” or “we will not be issuing referrals until all the evidence is in” are using that rhetoric so that criminal referrals do not seem like a foregone conclusion. At this point in time referrals are, or should be, a foregone conclusion based upon evidence – not upon politics.
As of now, there is plenty of evidence to make those referrals – but it cannot seem like the hearings are just a dog and pony show performed solely to justify accusing the former president for political reasons. With just the material that is publicly available at this point, it would be possible to apply the great Brian Dennehy line from Silverado to Trump and the others: “We are going to give you a fair trial - - followed by a first rate hanging.” But as much as those who have been paying attention know that is an accurate depiction of the situation- it cannot appear to be so obvious or even hint that it might just all be political.
My point is that if you are a citizen of the USA, you should not put too much hope in legal proceedings.
You need to do your damnedest to make sure you support and vote for non neo-facists. Preferably try to shift your voter registration to a state/district with more leverage. Better yet, help others to do the same. Buy some property in Wyoming. You just have to find ~130,000 friends and you get two senators. With some clever “reverse- jerrymandering” you might not need that many.
The other side does not have the numbers to play those games.
Protest, sue – do whatever. but do it organized and with clear goals: primary this candidate, vote in that candidate.
The GOP is doing shit like that since forever with much more limited means. Get organized, find sponsors and get those 60 (61!) Senate seats. Then you can get a competent AG and eat popcorn while watching them do their perp walk. And end the overrepresentation of empty prairie in the Senate while you’re at it.
You (the “D” side) have the numbers: make 'em count.
“He believed in his own lie. He had absolutely convinced himself that he had actually won, and that all the things he was saying prior [to the election] came true, that actually there was some malfeasance,” Holder said…
“So he lives in an alternate reality, and engaging in that is foolhardy. It’s just like talking to a brick wall.”
Think of Merrick Garland as Michael Corelone in the first two Godfather movies. He must have his revenge served up cold and swiftly in a single day with no overt connection to his Democratic familia. He will be in church when the warrants get served, being absolved of his sins.
This is often how RICO cases go down. Lets pray it doesn’t end up like Godfather III.
There’s no rational explanation for the time he’s taken so far, and just to show he wasn’t working hard on this in secret he’s admitted to now playing catch-up and being taken by surprise with the recent committee testimony. He has no reason to believe he can be effective as the AG much longer, by this time in 2024 it will be too late to act.
Merrick Garland only has this position because he didn’t get a hearing after his SCOTUS nomination. And he was selected by Obama for nomination because he seemed to be entirely inoffensive to the Republicans. That is not a hearty endorsement of his abilities in my book.
