And I’d forgotten In Bruges—as you say, it’s a good one.
This thread has become everything I wanted it to be(lgium).
Well, until Biden declares some more Cabinet members, it may well continue along those lines. We ghent the thread we deserve, after all.
The current list of Cabinet-level officials is:
- Secretary of State – Antony Blinken
- Secretary of the Treasury – Janet Yellen
- Secretary of Homeland Security – Alejandro Mayorkas
- National Security Advisor – Jake Sullvan
- Director of National Intelligence – Avril Haines
- US Ambassador to the United Nations – Linda Thomas-Greenfield
- US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate – John Kerry
The one a lot of us are particularly interested in is Attorney General. Today’s speech by Biden raised concerns among those who fear he will embrace a “forgive and forget” policy toward Trump Administration lawbreakers (including the Horrible Object himself).
Biden defines himself as a person who’s primarily characterized by “love,” which certainly makes a nice change. But an Attorney General, at the very least, must be characterized by a concern for “justice.”
Investigations and possible indictments of Trump era lawbreakers is properly the domain of the Justice Department and not of the President. It’s good that we’re not dealing with Mr. Vindictive. But the AG should at least be Mr.-or-Ms. Rule-of-Law.
An article in WaPo yesterday offers some names (Sally Yates, Doug Jones, Jeh Johnson, etc.) and an overview of the controversy over what a Biden AG should prioritize. It concludes:
That does sound smart.
It seems likely that Biden will want “restoring morale” to be priority #1, but a lot of us believe that brushing lawbreaking under the rug–even if it was committed by a Presidential Administration–is as bad for the country as is the low morale at Justice.
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I suspect that if there’s going to be any attempt to prosecute members of 45’s admin, up to and including 45 himself, Sally Yates may not be the best choice. Since she was fired 10 days into her position of Acting AG for refusing to carry out a Trump order, any move toward investigating Trump and his goblins may just look like sour grapes and/or revenge. Even if it’s all on the up-and-up and totally legit, it would open them up to harsh criticism.
I think it may be Jeh Johnson, as it seems Biden might want to have someone who’s not a white male at the top of the Justice Department (looking at you Doug Jones). Maybe Tom Perez, which would allow Biden to slide someone like Stacy Abrams or Jaime Harrison into the top spot at the DNC.
Like that’s not going to happen no matter who gets appointed?
But why invite it? And why offer up any reason for investigations to be discredited right off the bat just because of who’s in charge of the DoJ? The optics would be absolutely terrible.
I mean, I’ve wanted Sally Yates as AG for over a year, and I’ve been saying that every chance I’ve had on these boards. I’d also love to see TrumpCo get prosecuted and tossed in the pokey for their treachery. But I just don’t see both of those things happening. If the plan is to potentially investigate and prosecute, why put a person who was actually fired by Trump in charge of it? Especially when there are plenty of other great candidates for AG out there who weren’t shitcanned by Trump.
I hope and think Biden wont do it. Let New York and other states do it, then Bidens hands are clean.
And yeah, that’s the other possibility, which I’d also love to see. So I guess my dream scenario: AG Sally Yates goes largely hands-off when it comes to investigating and prosecuting TrumpCo, but the states go all in and put as many of those dirtbags in prison as they can.
If Trump and his cronies are legitimately prosecuted at the federal level for actual crimes committed then how would Biden’s hands be “dirty”?
To 70 Million Americans it will look like Politics, and it will set a bad precedent.
Biden has already said he doesnt want to, and he is right.
Let NY do it.
So it’s an all-female communications team:
At the very least, I hope the federal IRS will finish that eternal Trump audit already, and bill Trump for whatever he owes (widely speculated to be in the $100MIL range).
Perhaps not wanting to overshadow Biden, Harris waited until this weekend to start announcements regarding her own team:
Flournoy was Bill Clinton’s chief of staff for eight years, so there’s some continuity there (that might or might not be welcomed by various wings of the Democratic Party).