April 3, 2022

"And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor..."

"... who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6... The Jan. 6 investigation is a test not just for Mr. Garland, but for Mr. Biden as well.... Complicating matters for Mr. Biden is the fact that his two children are entangled in federal investigations, making it all the more important that he stay out of the Justice Department’s affairs or risk being seen as interfering for his own family’s gain... Justice Department officials do not keep Mr. Biden abreast of any investigation, including those involving his children.... The cases involving Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden are worked on by career officials, and people close to the president... have no visibility into them.... The Justice Department has given no public indication about its timeline or whether prosecutors might be considering a case against Mr. Trump.... Even in private, [Garland] relies on a stock phrase: 'Rule of law,' he says,'means there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.'... Quiet and reserved, Mr. Garland is well known for the job he was denied: a seat on the Supreme Court.... His critics say that his... years as an appeals court judge made him slow and overly deliberative...."

From "Garland Faces Growing Pressure as Jan. 6 Investigation Widens/The inquiry is a test for President Biden and Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who both came into office promising to restore the Justice Department’s independence" (NYT).

I hope Garland is true to his "stock phrase." To call it a "stock phrase" is to suggest it's an insincere platitude. Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves.

103 comments:

Laslo Spatula said...

I don't believe what Garland says.

I don't believe what Biden says.

I don't believe what the NYT says.

Banana Republic.

I am Laslo.

tim maguire said...

Should I be surprised that Biden’s attempt to interfere with the justice department for political reasons focusses on the independence and dedication to the rule of law by Garland? Maybe he is, but I wish I were more surprised that interference by a Democrat is ignored except as a tool to highlight the professionalism of a Democratic appointee.

Rusty said...

" Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves."
The usual suspect are immoral and consequently do not know shame.

Curious George said...

"Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves."

LOL. They have no shame.

wendybar said...

Be careful what you wish for Joe, because YOU, Hillary, Obama and Bill Clinton will have it done to THEM too, when Repubicans take over...(unless it is the squishy Rino's who do nothing.) Set the precedent...I dare you.

Mr Wibble said...

Merrick Garland is perfectly fine allowing DoJ prosecutors to play procedural games, denying defendants access to evidence from that day and delaying trials while prisoners languish in jail for over a year, all for the horrific crimes of walking through open doors and around the capitol building. Any hesitation he has on going after Trump is because he knows that a) Trump is rich enough to be able to fully fund a defense and b) that it would trigger a massive blowback. I don't for a second believe it's due to any respect for the rule of law.

The left wanted to use Jan 6 as the way to protect their electoral fortunes, but unfortunately no one outside of DC gives a damn about it. That said, I fully expect blue-state and county officials to use Jan 6 as an excuse to deny Trump access to the ballot. The courts will punt because they are cowards.

Mike Sylwester said...

years as an appeals court judge made him slow and overly deliberative

When the White House told Garland's Justice Department to make a big deal about PTA meetings, then that was done promptly, and Garland defended it to Congress stubbornly.

Howard said...

I thought Trump moved the Overton Window so all future presidents can use the AG like Michael used Tom Hagen?

Mike Sylwester said...

The cases involving Hunter Biden and Ashley Biden are worked on by career officials

That's the same Justice Department officials who worked on the case of Hilary Clinton's e-mails too.

Humperdink said...

"Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves."

OTOH, They had to be thrilled with him going after the terroristic mothers at school board meetings.

Leland said...

I’m seeing the same screen as NYT but the movie looks different to me. What’s the federal statute involved with raiding a news organization over a diary? Because that seems like an abuse of power to me. Alas, the NYT was the beneficiary of information from that very raid, so I suspect that’s why they don’t see it as abuse.

Tom said...

Why would Biden run for office if not to cover for his and his family’s corruption crimes and punish political enemies? Jan 6th has to be an insurrection so right wing terrorists (you know, your Uncle Rick who occasionally gets banned from FB) can be used to scare the rest of the country into obedience. Garland needs to get with the program - this authoritarianism won’t authoritarian itself.

Kai Akker said...

---I hope Garland is true to his "stock phrase." To call it a "stock phrase" is to suggest it's an insincere platitude.

Agree; well put.


---Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves.

Yes. But do you expect them to be ashamed? The notion of fairness in power is not in the playbook for the anti-Constitutional media.

Just before that "stock phrase" description was this howler: "even in private."

Can you imagine a lefty who even in private pretends to believe in the rule of law? How quaint it must have seemed to the NYT staffers! Guess no one in their world is so old-fashioned.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I would go even farther on the connotation of "stock phrase," that it also suggests something outmoded and dispensable.

n.n said...

Security denied by Congress. A peaceful assembly. An invitation extended. A riot forced by the Capitol and DC police. An unarmed woman murdered in cold blood. A probable Whitmer conspiracy.

Mike Sylwester said...

One of Garland's "legal" innovations is to seize the yachts and other valuable properties of Russian "oligarchs".

Browndog said...

-The DOJ is independent. Any influence exerted by the White Housed amounts to obstruction of justice. The DOJ must be shielded completely from the White House or it's the end of democracy.

-President Biden needs an aggressive prosecutor full of piss and vinegar. A true wing-man that will protect his interests and crush his political enemies with urgency. Failure to act precipitously will spell the end of democracy.

Iman said...

The usual moronic fuckery afoot…

God save us from these shitbirds.

BoatSchool said...

Garland “slow and overly deliberative.”?

The same guy whose department solicited that BS letter from the National Association of School Boards and then signed off on a letter that presumed you were a criminal to show up and peacefully protest - by actually speaking at - a school board meeting? That guy ?

Same guy who lives in the DC metro area and when questioned about a purportedly trans kid raping a girl in school in Loudon County, just outside DC proper claimed to know nothing about it ? That guy ?

Ann Althouse said...

"But do you expect them to be ashamed?"

No. I'm just saying they *should* be ashamed. I know they would defend the idea that a prosecutor should be aggressive and, essentially, biased and that someone with a *judicial* mindset is squandering an important opportunity. I'm just taking a position myself.

Koot Katmandu said...

I said it before (right after the election) and I will say it again. Donald Trump will not be allowed to run again. The Powerful Ds and Rs will stop him somehow anyway they need to.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Biden is "the big guy" who made 10% (at least)

How else do the corrupt children make money but using Joe Biden's powerful name for the deals.

Ampersand said...

The reporting on the Jan 6 prosecutions has been inadequate. I'd like to see summaries of the named defendants, arrest dates, bail arrangements, arraignments, judges, plea agreements, trial dates, speedy trial waivers, legal representation, and cooperation agreements.
Serious accusations have been made regarding entrapment,and regarding a supposed conspiracy to underprotect the Capitol. If the claims are false, transparency will show them to be false.

Bob Boyd said...

Uh oh.
Why are they telling us the AG is not politically motivated nor influenced by the most powerful people in Washington? And why now?

Conrad said...

So the story frames it as a clash over style and personality: The president wants the AG to be "less ponderous," but being cautious and careful is just who the AG is, blah, blah, blah. Isn't this really a story of the president wanting to turn America into a banana republic where prosecution and incarceration are used as tools to get rid of political opponents? The president wants the AG to prosecute Trump FOR WHAT? There's obviously no criminal case, so it's obvious the objective is the prosecution itself, NOT securing a conviction because the facts and law demand it.

At least in the case of the first impeachment against Trump, there was an argument that the term "high crimes and misdemeanors" meant whatever Congress wants it to mean, so the Dems didn't have to apply notions of criminal justice to what they were doing. But for the president -- the nation's chief law enforcement officer -- to demand prosecution of his chief political rival where there isn't even the slightest indication of criminal misconduct constitutes an incredible act of tyranny. How is this not infinitely worse than Trump's suggestion that that Ukraine merely look into Hunter Biden's Burisma affair?

(Trump did openly advocate for Hillary to be prosecuted for having classified emails on her personal devices -- but that IS criminal and others have been prosecuted for the exact same thing.)

Mark said...

Garland IS abusing his power all over the place.

Bob Boyd said...

Remember the battle space prep stories about Comey?
Jim Comey is just a tough cop, a straight shooter, a no-nonsense law man from the old school.

Browndog said...

Donald Trump will not be allowed to run again.

The only question remains: Will any republican be allowed to win again. With key players and infrastructure in place, is it even possible to have a fair enough election to overcome the level of fraud?

Look no further than what a federal judge just did to Florida. Now, the DOJ will run their elections for 10 years. The good 'ol Civil Rights Act everyone is so proud of.

Lucien said...

If you (or just your brains) live inside the Beltway, then “career DOJ official” is a term of esteem. To the rest of the country it translates to “creature of the Deep State “.

Tommy Duncan said...

Conrad said: " But for the president -- the nation's chief law enforcement officer -- to demand prosecution of his chief political rival where there isn't even the slightest indication of criminal misconduct constitutes an incredible act of tyranny."

Thank you for so concisely stating the issue. I wish it was not so difficult to sort through the propaganda, lies and false narratives to find the gist of the issue.

Yancey Ward said...

Bob Boyd nails with both comments.

Maynard said...

This could be a clever way of prepping the space for Garland to be the 2024 POTUS candidate.

It sounds crazy at first, but think about the Democrats other options for a second.

jim5301 said...

I have heard it said from former prosecutors (Chris Christie comes to mind) that one should not charge Trump unless one is certain of a conviction. Such a view is not consistent with equal-handed justice under the law. The general rule is that one should prosecute if the admissible evidence is sufficient to sustain a conviction, i.e., enough to meet the beyond reasonable doubt standard. The special Trump rule goes in his favor.

From the US Atty Manual:

"Where the law and the facts create a sound, prosecutable case, the likelihood of an acquittal due to unpopularity of some aspect of the prosecution or because of the overwhelming popularity of the defendant or his/her cause is not a factor prohibiting prosecution. For example, in a civil rights case or a case involving an extremely popular political figure, it might be clear that the evidence of guilt—viewed objectively by an unbiased factfinder—would be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, yet the prosecutor might reasonably doubt, based on the circumstances, that the jury would convict. In such a case, despite his/her negative assessment of the likelihood of a guilty verdict (based on factors extraneous to an objective view of the law and the facts), the prosecutor may properly conclude that it is necessary and appropriate to commence or recommend prosecution and allow the criminal process to operate in accordance with the principles set forth here."

JK Brown said...

The congressional witch hunt isn't helping. The political is muddying the waters for any prosecution, even if they find a reasonable basis.

And, by the way, how long has the Durham investigation being meandering along? Or how fast was the Muller "investigation".

Meade said...

Yancey Ward said...
Bob Boyd nails with both comments.

Yeah. It’s like—is this dude a commentator or a carpenter?

Lnelson said...

I thought Trump moved the Overton Window so all future presidents can use the AG like Michael used Tom Hagen?

I thought Obama moved the Overton Window with his "wingman" as politicized AG.

ccscientist said...

People came to a peaceful protest (as far as they knew anyway) and the cops opened the doors for them, there were FBI agents encouraging people to go in, going into the capitol has been a long-standing protest move by the dems--during the women's march (you know, with the pussy hats) pelosi got 1000 women to occupy the congressional office building. Trump asked for more police and the national guard and pelosi denied the request. It all stinks.
And you want me to believe that Garland, who is happy to call parents upset about a rape in school terrorists, is "ponderous"? He is eager and willing to establish tyranny.

The good news is that the public does not give a rats ass about the jan 6 "insurrection". Dems are not getting an ounce of extra support because of it. It is their ploy to deny trump the ability to run.

David Begley said...

Good to see Laslo again.

Curious George said...

Laslo is back!

Michael K said...

Of course Garland is abusing his position, as is most of the DOJ. For the first time since Wilson was president we have political prisoners in this country. The rule of law, right to a fair trial and lots of other rights are being denied. The Biden junta is barely concealing the Gestapo-like behavior.

Meade said...

Shh… careful not to spook him. Laslo is like the Chestnut Mare. Or something.

Achilles said...

Koot Katmandu said...

I said it before (right after the election) and I will say it again. Donald Trump will not be allowed to run again. The Powerful Ds and Rs will stop him somehow anyway they need to.

I really hope that they are that stupid.

Douglas B. Levene said...

Garland is very similar to Barr. Both men believe in the law and in not using the DOJ criminal process as a tool of the White House’s political operations, although of course they try to implement Administration policies. I’m not saying Garland is perfect about this—his creation of a task force to investigate school board meeting dissenters was a notable failure to follow his “No politics” line. But with respect to Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud, and Trump’s attempt to use legal machinations to overturn an election he lost, Garland is playing it right down the middle. I don’t believe he will indict Trump or anyone in his circle for conspiracy to obstruct Congress or for seditious conspiracy or any other crime relating to those events without proof that they agreed to use force or violence to accomplish those ends. He won’t use creative legal theories like “defrauding the government” notwithstanding great pressure from the Democrats in the House and from President Biden to do so primarily because they are novel, untested, run up against strong First Amendment concerns, and would have all kinds of unintended consequences down the road. Garland understands, even if the Democratic caucus does not, that any rule of law that the courts accept here will apply equally to the Democrats in the future.

Narayanan said...

what does it mean ?Justice Department's Independence?

does it fit in with USA 3-branches constitutional structure?

isz I misedumacated?

Achilles said...

I hope Garland is true to his "stock phrase." To call it a "stock phrase" is to suggest it's an insincere platitude. Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves.


You should feel silly for believing anything any of these people have said or pretending they were ever anything other than terrible people trying to obtain power.

You should be ashamed of yourself for not actively opposing it.

Narayanan said...

'Rule of law,' he says,'means there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.'...
===========
I wonder what the term "rule" refers to?
can Garland provide definition for?
is not law a variety of rule?

!?how do you identify LAW amidst thicket of RULE?!

Narayanan said...

'Rule of law,' he says,'means there not be one rule for friends and another for foes.'...
===========
and here I thought lawyerly-people-professionals would expect him to say :
---- not be one law for friends and another for foes!

I wonder what the term "rule" refers to?
can Garland provide definition for?
is not law a variety of rule?

!?how do you identify LAW amidst thicket of RULE?!

Darkisland said...

We've had a number of commenters, some still commenting, some thankfully gone, suggest that PEDJT should be convicted and jailed.

Some were suggesting this even before he was elected. Some here are still demanding this.

I have the same question for Brandon as I have had for them for the past 6 years. "What is the crime?"

As Ann points out, to be tried and convicted, there needs to be an accusation of a specific crime. As in something defined in the USC as being a crime. Something more than "I don't like him."

I never got an answer from any of the commenters in 6 years. I don't expect one from Brandon.

But it is one thing when a commenter blathers it. It is entirely another when the (alleged) president of the US blathers it.

I would hope, but don't expect, that a presstitute would call him on it. Make him say what crime PEDJT has allegedly committed.

John LGBTQBNY Henry

Darkisland said...

They say that "A prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich"

Yet in 40-50 years in public life, much of the time controversial, no prosecutor has ever indicted him. Or even, AFAIK, alleged any indictable crime that he may have committed.

Does this mean that PEDJT is cleaner than a ham sandwich?

John LGBTQBNY Henry

Narayanan said...

... he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor..."

===========
how would Biden know what acting more like prosecutor ?
unless he considers his Senate and VP career to be such?
=== as VP he got to fire Ukraine prosecutor!!!

Darkisland said...

I believe Laslo Spatula.

John LGBTQBNY Henry

Darkisland said...

Can of cheese,

Brandon, and other Bidens, certainly made a lot of money from the Hunter's Ukraine and other grifts.

Probably a lot more than 10%. More like 50% acordig to some of the emails on the laptop.

But Brandon is not "The Big Guy"

There seems to be more and more evidence that "The Big Guy" is/was Obama.

John LGBTQBNY Henry

NotPropagandized said...

Alas, Garland has already engaged in a vicious 2-tiered justice and investigatory approach, e.g. terrorist parents at school boards, ignoring BLM/Antifa/FBI Jan 6 perps. He would be well advised to back off from acting on the relentless pressure he is most certainly under to persist along political lines. The fact that John Durham is still around and steadily creeping into extremely sensitive areas ruled by the establishment elites may be a sign that he is taking the Biden Crime Family offenses against the United States of America more seriously. Nah, probably not.

Michael K said...

But with respect to Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud, and Trump’s attempt to use legal machinations to overturn an election he lost, Garland is playing it right down the middle.

The Biden supporter speaks out. The "middle" is somewhere left of Lenin.

Mr Wibble said...

Does this mean that PEDJT is cleaner than a ham sandwich?

Yes. Trump is the cleanest man in politics. Donald. Trump.

Additionally, it also explains the hysteria towards him: everyone in DC is so dirty that they assumed he had to be just as bad, if not worse.

n.n said...

There seems to be more and more evidence that "The Big Guy" is/was Obama.

The Biden/Maidan/Slavic Spring and Obama Spring series with "benefits".

n.n said...

Garland has already engaged in a vicious 2-tiered justice and investigatory approach, e.g. terrorist parents at school boards, ignoring BLM/Antifa/FBI Jan 6 perps

Antifa (anti-family)

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Hillary wanted Comey dead.

So stupid Trump did Hilary's dirty work for her, when he fired him.

Trump should have kept Comey. Yeah - Comey is a c***, but Comey was a million miles better than the corrupt creeps who filled the void.

n.n said...

suggest that PEDJT should be convicted and jailed. Some were suggesting this even before he was elected. Some here are still demanding this.

Election irregularities and fraud, and perpetual steering and braying of handmade tales of misinformation and disinformation, with the occasional insurrection, occupation, and neighborhood incursion a la KKK to intimidate families and residents.

BLM (Baby Lives Matter), and it's related technical term of art, FLM (Fetal Lives Matter).

Wince said...

And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor... who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6... The Jan. 6 investigation is a test not just for Mr. Garland, but for Mr. Biden as well.

The idea that the biased pronouncements of Nancy Pelosi's literally hand-picked committee should be the predicate of any criminal proceeding is absurd on its face.

n.n said...

The Biden junta is barely concealing the Gestapo-like behavior.

Ah, the American Spring. Kiev disenfranchised then denied essential services (e.g. energy, food, water) to Ukrainians, notably in Crimea, which motivated their vote and invitation to Russians for services and defense. The Kiev-aligned military and paramilitary forces attacked Ukrainians for 8 years in progress, including two years under Zelensky. NOW (pun intended), Zelensky not only sustained the Slavic Spring but went full fascist and banned all opposition political parties. There has been much progress since the democratic/dictatorial coup, including the celebration of torture... torture-torture and forcing Ukrainians to take a knee.

Lurker21 said...

This isn't journalism. It's public relations. It's spin to make Garland look good and the government's actions appear moderate and measured. I suppose if one extreme is to do absolutely nothing and the other is to throw Trump and everyone else into prison without trials, what the DOJ is doing is indeed a judicious middle road, but most people recognize that there is a lot of room between those two extremes. One hopes they also see the ways in which the prosecutors are abusing their power.

The coupling of the investigation of Hunter with the investigation of Project Veritas to find out how they got Ashley's diary is truly bizarre. In one case, the DOJ is investigating facts that are embarrassing (and worse) to the administration. In the other case they are doing the administration's dirty work.

Freder Frederson said...

terrorist parents at school

So exactly how many "terrorist parents" have been charged with a crime (hell, give me examples of any investigations)?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

“ Garland understands, even if the Democratic caucus does not, that any rule of law that the courts accept here will apply equally to the Democrats in the future.”

But never, under any circumstances, in the past. Now, where’s that Republican I was trying to stitch up?

Douglas B. Levene said...

@Michael: In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” That was his claim, that he made himself. I’m still waiting for proof.

Critter said...

No doubt this DOJ credibility piece was suggested by the DOJ as payback for leaks to the NYT. The article is a howler and a case study in propaganda. Based on what they have done, it is easy to make the case that this DOJ is the most political in at least a generation. Garland is an AG who only consumes liberal news sources so he is ignorant of current developments. The real activism is in the next level political appointments such as the Stanford law professor who made fun of Trump’s son in a very mean-spirited way during an impeachment hearing. She was also behind the aggressive letter threatening federal lawsuits if Arizona or any state undertakes a canvass of 2020 voters to establish election fraud. Of course, that is not seen as political by the left.

Josephbleau said...

“But with respect to Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud, and Trump’s attempt to use legal machinations to overturn an election he lost”

Both these claims are not crimes. If citizen Trump does lie about election fraud, how do you know? Did someone prove the election was not fraudulent? Can you prove Trump faked evidence of fraud? Is it a crime to use a legal machination? If so then it is not a legal machination.

Narayanan said...

Does this mean that PEDJT is cleaner than a ham sandwich?
============
Trump is Halal-er than thou can ever imagine! is how he was able to persuade Gulf-Arab states.

Tina Trent said...

We still don't know the extent of property destruction, theft, intimidation, assaults, murder and attempted murder of police perpetrated by the international conspirators of ANTIFA and Food Not Bombs, the national conspirators of BLM, ELF, or, going back in time, the BLA, The May 19 Revolutionary group, the Weathermen (anyone remember that Detroit bomb?), Nation of Islam, the Panthers, FALN, and violence committed on or supported on our soil by the IRA, Castro's men, too many Islamic cells to count, and Soviet backed groups.

But the DOJ did one hell of a good job literally helicoptering in teams of agents to make sure the woman who tugged on another woman's headscarf during a brief verbal argument in a grocery store line the day after Major Hasan's workplace violence was subjected to every type of humiliation and prosecution allowable, while the entire town was subjected to preemptive re-education lest they deign to voice anger over Hasan's mass murder of innocents.

This ain't your grandfather's DOJ.

Sebastian said...

"Those who are disappointed that Garland doesn't seem to be abusing his power should be ashamed of themselves."

They should be ashamed of themselves! They should be better! It's terrible!

But as always: the bad, bad prog behavior will only stop when the Althouses of America decide to act on their irritation and indignation to resist the prog shenanigans, consistently.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Of course Garland is abusing his position, as is most of the DOJ. For the first time since Wilson was president we have political prisoners in this country. The rule of law, right to a fair trial and lots of other rights are being denied. The Biden junta is barely concealing the Gestapo-like behavior”

The DOJ, all by itself didn’t decide to shift from investigating Muslim terrorists to investigating White Supremists (I.e. Republicans), or prosecuting AntiFA and BLM terrorists to prosecuting peaceful 1-6 protesters, or from investigating election fraud to protecting it, from attacking racial gerrymandering to protecting it, etc. Those sorts of major policy changes don’t happen in a vacuum, esp considering how quickly they were made. Most DOJ prosecutors aren’t hard left activists, but rather career bureaucrats who focus on their perks, pay, and pensions. The huge U-turn in DOJ direction, and it’s seeming disregard for Constitutional norms came from one place, and one place alone - the change in political leadership. And that means the supposedly sainted Merrill Garland.

Keep this in mind. The DOJ is going to be investigated next year, after the Republicans take control of the House, likely by their largest margin in decades. Garland and his DOJ can’t prevent it, without gun safes around the country being unlocked and unloaded. The primary investigations are going to involve its highly policies due investigations and prosecutions, esp of the non violent 1-6 protests. That investigation was ginned up by top Dems in Congress working with top DOJ political leadership to cover up their party’s blatant election fraud in the 2020 election, and the resulting theft of the Presidency and control of the Senate. Career bureaucrats are risk adverse as a general rule. That’s why they are there. The heads of the prosecutors, and their managers, etc, who have pushed this investigation, and kept people in jail, in deplorable conditions, for in some cases over a year, for potentially essentially trespassing, are likely to get lopped off, if their butts weren’t fairly well protected by the DOJ political leadership. They violated the Constitution and broke DOJ rules to do this sort of vicious highly political prosecuting, and didn’t do it just because they were good lefty foot soldiers. They were ordered to. The big question is how well did they protect themselves with CYA memos.

effinayright said...

Merrick Garland's son runs a "DEI" scam pushing "diversity" audits on school systems. He did one for our small town, which is 98.5% non-black.

And of course its "findings" have made their way into all sort of "woke" crap in our schools, from K-12. With much more to come.

When the FB Town Parents group confronted the matter they were jeered at, with the usual claims that CRT is NOT being taught at schools, and the DEI is NOT an outgrowth of CRT.

Yet the school committee minutes reveal that "Cultural Competency Training", a DEI pet project, will be given to our teachers.

Surely, Mr. "Rule of Law" is aware what his son's nefarious organization is up to---which is to advise unlawful conduct violating our Civil Rights laws and the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Thanks a pantload, AG Merrick!!!

Bruce Hayden said...

“But with respect to Trump’s campaign of lies about election fraud, and Trump’s attempt to use legal machinations to overturn an election he lost, Garland is playing it right down the middle.“

Lying through your teeth here. The evidence keeps rolling it. The election fraud in some of these states was massive - here in AZ, where FJB’s margin of victory was 10k votes (and the husband of gun grabbing Gabby Giffords’ margin was 20k), the state Senate has documented probably more than 500k likely fraudulent votes. Many more than the 10k margin were clearly fraudulent, from ballots printed on the wrong paper, on the wrong type of printers, accepted without signatures, etc. But throw in the ballots from fictitious, dead, and moved people, from illegal ballot collection points, imputed Biden and Kelly votes, etc, and the fraud was overwhelming. This last week, the AG turned a referral for prosecution of the Soros appointed Sec of State over to the county attorney is Bisbee. The investigation of this industrial level ballot fraud is called “disenfranchisement” by the Merrick DOJ. As noted above - much of what they are doing is protecting the FJB Administration and top Dems against paying the moral a price for such egregious election fraud.

effinayright said...

There seems to be more and more evidence that "The Big Guy" is/was Obama.
**************

Then PRODUCE IT!!! Don't just vaguely allude to it.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Darkie - I'm talking about Joe Bidne's cut.

and how the media will dutifully say Joe didn't have any clue about his son's corrupt deals. LOL. and the hivemind will dutifully swallow.

farmgirl said...

<3 Laslo!!

mikee said...

I remember when it was an absolutely impeachable scandal that Nixon asked the IRS to investigate the taxes of political opponents. The IRS refused, of course, and did so publicly.

I remember later it became a completely acceptable use of the IRS to oppress political opponents of Obama quite openly, and Lois Lerner suffered zero penalties for doing so other than being forced to resign.

I remember when it was an absolutely impeachable scandal that Nixon's AG conspired to obstruct justice and lied about doing so to Congress. He went to jail for it.

I see now it is a completely acceptable use by the President of the Attorney General to request he do exactly the same sort of political hit jobs that led to jail for AG Mitchell.

History keeps repeating itself, only as farce, as the saying goes.

farmgirl said...

Keeping citizens locked up in jail as domestic terrorists w/out having charged them w/a crime… is not considered an abuse of power?

Who threw the rock through the Overton window!! T’wasn’t Trump.

Oh, crap! Too late, Meade…

Skeptical Voter said...

While I doubt that Attorney General Garland will ultimately stick to honoring the rule of law, somebody needs to rein in the Pelosi Posse and (Bad) Sheriff Schiff. There is hope that the mid term elections will serve to somewhat clip the wings of those two.

Douglas B. Levene said...

@Bruce Hayden: Don’t change the subject. In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” Where is the evidence for that claim?

Dude1394 said...

Jan 6 is a political tribunal for the purpose of gaining advantage in the midterms and beyond. It is a travesty of justice and is creating well over 80 million plus Americans to look rightly at our government as the real enemy.

Douglas B. Levene said...

@josephbleau: You did notice, I hope, that I did not say that Trump’s actions constituted a crime. That would not be true if there was any evidence that he communicated with and agreed with the yahoos who planned the Capitol invasion that they should do so, but Trump is far too clever to do something like that.

Jim at said...

So exactly how many "terrorist parents" have been charged with a crime (hell, give me examples of any investigations)?

Google 'Loudoun County school board parent charged', dumbshit.

And then go back and read the fucking memo Garland wrote.

Michael K said...


Blogger Douglas B. Levene said...

@Michael: In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” That was his claim, that he made himself. I’m still waiting for proof.


The proof has been well hidden by harassing lawyers who would have taken Trump's case but for threats. Hundreds of Trump supporters sit in DC jails for a years with no hearings and no due process. The Democrats have threatened GOP Congress members with prosecution for "insurrection" if they ask questions about the 2020 election.

I suspect your wait will be rewarded after January 2023 when a new Congress takes office.

Michael K said...

Blogger Douglas B. Levene said...

@Bruce Hayden: Don’t change the subject. In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” Where is the evidence for that claim?


It was about half a million in AZ. More is coming once the coverup implodes.

Browndog said...

@Bruce Hayden: Don’t change the subject. In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” Where is the evidence for that claim?

Where's the evidence the claim is false? Because democrats say so?

To date, not one voting machine has been forensically analyzed having the findings made public and/or adjudicated.

Nothing has been "fixed" from the last election.

"There is no need to investigate because there is no proof" works on many, not on me.

Josephbleau said...

I predict that this October a large kitchen sink walls are closing in report will be issued from the j6 committee. In December the committees’ cell phones and email will be accidentally erased, and all committee records will be unlocateable, the FBI will say it’s sad that they will never be able to find them because all the obviously guilty baddies can’t be prosecuted like they deserve.

Browndog said...

This ain't your grandfather's DOJ.

Knowing what you know now, how can you be so sure?

Josephbleau said...

“but Trump is far too clever to do something like that.”

Trump is simultaneously the stupidest president we ever had, and the greatest criminal genius the world has ever spawned.

hombre said...

IF Garland is a decent man and an ethical prosecutor, he knows that the turds who work for him - who are neither - have pushed The January 6th BS beyond the bounds of propriety and the Constitution.

This is particularly apparent in light of the "get out of jail free" cards provided by DOJ to the BLM/Antifa rioters whose damage was a quantum leap of scales greater than that of the January 6ers.

hombre said...

Levene (1:51 pm): "Where is the evidence for that claim?"

Unlike QuidProJoe, who is a pathological liar, Trump has a penchant for hyperbole. However, considerable evidence has been uncovered of irregularities, including altered and illegal ballots and corrupted voter lists, illegal changes to voting rules, contributions to election officials to alter procedures in key districts, etc. This evidence is comprised of eyewitness affidavits, results from independent investigations and audits of the election. Could amount to "millions."

To date, Democrats, RINOs and media naysayers have produced nothing to contradict this evidence, preferring to attack the messengers and to rely on scofflaw judges to keep the claims from being litigated.

The ongoing suggestions from dishonest, disingenuous Democrats that "there is no evidence" or "there was no fraud" are as divorced from reality as QPJ's policies.



Bruce Hayden said...

“@Bruce Hayden: Don’t change the subject. In November 2020, Trump tweeted that “millions” of votes were “altered.” Where is the evidence for that claim?”

I wasn’t. My comment essentially said that Trump very likely did win the election. I never said anything one way or another about his claim that millions of votes were tampered with. Trump exaggerates. We all know that. This is a classic case of him being literally wrong but figuratively correct. The sort of Gotcha practiced against him for the last six or so years. You’re the one moving goal posts here.

Were there “millions” of illegal votes counted cumulatively in the six key swing states that he should have won, but didn’t. Maybe. From the evidence in two of them, AZ and GA, together, there is evidence of maybe a million illegal votes. That’s well over an order of magnitude larger than Biden’s margin in those states. Putting all the fraud documented here in AZ together, we could be talking 750k illegal votes for a 10k margin of victory. There is probably some double counting there, which is why I used the more conservative half million figure - in one single state. It is certainly possible that among PA, MI, and WI combined, there might be another million illegal votes, but we are unlikely to ever find out. The fix is in, and has been from day 1. As one example, AG Barr apparently refused to give a USPS driver whistleblower protection and shut down the investigation of 288,000 illegal ballots he had hauled from NY to PA, forcing the USA investigating to turn it over to the Dem PA AG.

Mike Sylwester said...

Douglas B. Levene at 10:07 AM
his creation of a task force to investigate school board meeting dissenters was a notable failure to follow his “No politics” line

Merick Garland created that task force because the White House told him to do so.

Static Ping said...

So "Biden" said he wants Trump prosecuted. Was that before he forgot he was President for the 946th time, or after he challenged the 14th head of state to a fistfight in his dementia confusion? The fact that the NYT is pretending Biden is President really all you need to know what I think of this story. Dittos to Laslo.

And if the Department of Justice was really independent, Biden would have gone to prison 40 years ago. But I suppose we can enjoy our fantasies.

Static Ping said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jupiter said...

Merrick Garland is a Left Fascist. The only other significant fact about the son-of-a-bitch is his age.

Lurker21 said...

If I remember correctly, Hunter clearly says he is giving 50% of his income to his father, not to anyone else. We don't know whether that figure is an exaggeration, but he was clearly referring to his father.

Even people who believe the craziest things about Obama don't seriously think he was the "Big Guy" who got 10%. If he were, Joe wouldn't have gotten his cut and it's clear that he did.

It seems like the function of the Squad and other Democrat zanies is to make what the Biden Team is doing look moderate in comparison to what the zanies claim. The function of the Republican zanies seems to be to scare Republicans into doing nothing and just following Mitch.

Iman said...

“That would not be true if there was any evidence that he communicated with and agreed with the yahoos who planned the Capitol invasion…”

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Danno said...

Static Ping said ... "And if the Department of Justice was really independent, Biden would have gone to prison 40 years ago. But I suppose we can enjoy our fantasies."

It is for the DC elites only, so remember to think of it as The Department of Just Us.

The Godfather said...

By any objective standard, the 2020 Presidential vote was close. If voters had been allowed to know about Hunter Biden's laptop and his efforts to enrich himself and his family by selling Joe Biden's influence on the Obama Administration, is it plausible that the outcome of the election would have been different? Biden's allies in federal law enforcement and the MSM made sure that didn't happen.

The Godfather said...

Having said that the Democrat-Media alliance gave us the Biden Administration, maybe that all turns out to be for the best. If Trump had been re-elected, he would have been dealing with a Democratic House and a barely-GOP Senate. Not a great hand for even a good political card-player, and no one ever said Trump was that. The 2022 election would likely have gone against the President's party, so the last two years of the Trump Administration would have been like most presidents' last two years. Then, come 2024 (assuming the Dems are still capable of finding a Truman or a Clinton), that could be a big year for the Dems.

It would be a serious mistake for Republicans/conservatives to save the Democrats from the consquences of their short-sighted manipulations of the political mechanisms.

Douglas B. Levene said...

@ Bruce Hayden: So you concede that Trump's claim that "millions" of votes were "altered" was false. You have all kinds of excuses for that whopper of a lie, but the fact remains, it was a wild lie, without a shred of truth to it. Trump hasn't offered proof that even a single vote was "altered" let alone "millions" nor has he ever retracted that claim or apologized for it. That's it for me. I'm not prepared to consider any other claims of election fraud made by or on behalf of Trump. He made up a wild claim to try to pressure Congress into installing him as president even though he lost. That's the truth.

Rt41Rebel said...

Howard gets paid $5 for every comment he posts here. Remember that when you respond to him.