RSN: FOCUS: Charles Pierce | It Sure Looks Like the DOJ Is Closing Its Net Around Trump

 

 

28 July 22

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FOCUS: Charles Pierce | It Sure Looks Like the DOJ Is Closing Its Net Around Trump
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "Henry Wadsworth Longfellow copped it 15-odd centuries later, but it was a Greek skeptic philosopher named Sextus Empiricus who first noted that 'the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.'"

It's turning into the cliffhanger of the century.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow copped it 15-odd centuries later, but it was a Greek skeptic philosopher named Sextus Empiricus who first noted that "the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small."

Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to be a grinder after all. From the Washington Post:

Prosecutors who are questioning witnesses before a grand jury — including two top aides to Vice President Mike Pence — have asked in recent days about conversations with Trump, his lawyers, and others in his inner circle who sought to substitute Trump allies for certified electors from some states Joe Biden won, according to two people familiar with the matter. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

The prosecutors have asked hours of detailed questions about meetings Trump led in December 2020 and January 2021; his pressure campaign on Pence to overturn the election; and what instructions Trump gave his lawyers and advisers about fake electors and sending electors back to the states, the people said. Some of the questions focused directly on the extent of Trump’s involvement in the fake-elector effort led by his outside lawyers, including John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani, these people said.

After all these months, it’s strange to see it in black and white. Even after the case that the House select committee laid out so plainly in its public hearings, it’s strange to see it in black and white. Even after all the dogged reporting out of Washington, and Georgia, and Arizona; after four years of a chaotic and periodically insane presidency, and an even more chaotic and constantly insane post-presidency, it’s strange to see it set out so plainly and so starkly in print. The Department of Justice is investigating the former president* of the United States on suspicion of organizing a criminal cabal of second-rate ratfckers to overthrow the United States government, with a violent attack on the Capitol as its last overt act.

(And let us never lose sight of the fact that this was conspiracy of dunces: Eastman. Clark. Ellis. Giuliani. Flynn. Powell. The president* himself. Washington hasn’t seen such a misbegotten junta since John Wilkes Booth put together his band of scoundrels and vagabonds to decapitate the executive branch in 1865.)

Federal criminal investigations are by design opaque, and probes involving political figures are among the most closely held secrets at the Justice Department. Many end without criminal charges. The lack of observable investigative activity involving Trump and his White House for more than a year after the Jan. 6 attack has fueled criticism, particularly from the left, that the Justice Department is not pursuing the case aggressively enough.

Both tracks of the investigation have accelerated in recent days, as the House committee wrapped up its scheduled slate of public hearings with the promise of more to come. The DOJ dropped subpoenas on people suspected of being part of the counterfeit electors plot in Arizona. Aides to former Vice President Mike Pence have dropped by a federal grand jury. And Garland himself on Wednesday night sat down with Lester Holt of NBC News to say (again) that he'll follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Meanwhile, The New York Times got ahold of some hilarious internal White House emails that remind you of nothing more than those Enron messages about letting Aunt Tillie freeze in the dark.

In emails reviewed by The New York Times and authenticated by people who had worked with the Trump campaign at the time, one lawyer involved in the detailed discussions repeatedly used the word "fake" to refer to the so-called electors, who were intended to provide Vice President Mike Pence and Mr. Trump's allies in Congress a rationale for derailing the congressional process of certifying the outcome. And lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny.

They don’t think you’re all suckers. They know you’re all suckers.

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