Sunday, November 06, 2022

Still Waiting for the Hammer on trump. Soon. It Should Be Soon.

The buzz on donald trump facing justice from the Department of Justice is picking up as the midterm elections wrap up this Tuesday. Via Alexander Bolton at The Hill website: 

Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once the 2024 presidential campaign gains momentum...

Gods, we gotta wait another 60 days? We've been waiting half the year ever since the Mar-A-Lago warrant search revealed trump's potential espionage and obstruction stealing documents that should have gone to the National Archives. At least hit trump with violating the Presidential Records Act, you've got him dead to rights on that.

GOP aides also warn that an indictment of Trump by the Biden administration would further polarize the nation and likely strengthen Trump’s support from the Republican Party’s base as the former president and his allies would frame the Department of Justice’s prosecution as a political witch hunt...

trump's been screaming "Witch Hunt" for years now, ever since the Mueller investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 elections (and trump's likely ties to Russia during all that). trump's been screaming "Witch Hunt" about the Mar-A-Lago search for stolen documents. None of that has changed. We're already polarized as a nation regarding trump's illegal behaviors. Just fucking arrest him already.

I understand the Justice Department has delayed this long out of courtesy to the election cycle, because any move they would do before could influence voter behavior. We've seen that when FBI Director Comey screwed up and reported investigations into Hillary's emails before November 2016, which all turned out to be nothingburgers but likely cost her voters in battleground states.

But as soon as the election's done and the ballots are mostly counted, by Wednesday November 9th at the earliest, by that Friday November 11th at the latest, just fucking charge donald trump for the crimes the Justice Department can prove he's committed. Gods.

trump will scream that the DOJ shouldn't charge him, that there's never been a history of the feds charging a Presidential candidate for office before, because trump will claim he's a candidate already even though 2024 is still two years away. trump - and his Republican lackeys - all keep forgetting that the Justice Dept. only does that as a courtesy, not as a rule or as a law from Congress. The guys at Justice have never done it before because they've never had before an openly corrupt con artist like donald trump breaking federal laws that he's broken. If running for President made a crook untouchable, John Gotti would have run for the White House decades ago.

Confronted with the reality and evidence that donald trump has violated serious federal laws - regarding the Presidential Records Act, regarding likely acts of espionage by keeping and exposing hundreds of still-classified documents, regarding likely acts of obstruction hiding away documents detailing trump's involvement in January 6th Insurrection and/or other cases the government is investigating now - the United States government has no choice but to charge trump for what he's done. Otherwise, they expose our government to the horrors of allowing trump to repeat the same crimes, and worse stop themselves from ever honestly upholding those laws ever again. The hypocrisy of letting trump walk will never wash away.

Republicans and trump can scream "Partisan witch hunt" all they want. It can't hide the facts that trump broke a number of laws, and that he's perfectly willing to break more laws to serve his own needs.

Just fucking arrest trump already. Okay. We can wait until Wednesday. You better arrest him then.

Update 11/13: Apparently the midterm elections aren't entirely finished, as Georgia is looking at a finalist round for the Senate race between Warnock and Walker (neither of them clearing the 50 percent hurdle the state requires). As I've noted above, the DOJ as a courtesy will hold off on any major politically-tinged indictments until that vote is done (mid-December, perhaps? I need to find the timeline). Although that election is technically moot as the Democrats confirmed 50-seat control of the Senate this midterms, the courtesy remains. Meaning we got to wait another month before popping the champagne. 

This also applies to other ongoing criminal matters such as Matt Gaetz's impending doom regarding his buddy Greenberg, who just got a lighter sentence recommendation from the feds for his cooperation. All signs are pointing to Gaetz facing at least one felony charge, but given the leniency shown to Greenberg there's a good chance Greenberg gave up some serious shit on Gaetz (and other Florida Republicans).

1 comment:

dinthebeast said...

And now a high ranking Russian official has confirmed that they interfered in the 2016 election and vowed to keep interfering. It was all true, but the investigation was run by goddamn Republicans and as such would never find him guilty.
They are talking about appointing a special counsel in order to preserve the investigation past a likely Republican takeover of congress, but even that has its drawbacks.
Just charging him and prosecuting him for the obvious crimes and dealing with the other criming that exposes later seems like a better course, but one that Garland might be reluctant to pursue.
He wants everything tied up in a nice little bow before he starts the process, but we as a country may not have that luxury.

-Doug in Sugar Pine