Merrick Garland wanted to avoid politics and protect the DOJ as an institution.

Thanks to his actions, or lack thereof, in one fell swoop, he has set the course to destroy the DOJ as an institution, make a mockery of what's left of the rule of law, and change politics as we have known it.

Ignominy.
#merrickgarland #politics

@WarnerCrocker Blame Mitch McConnell and the GOP. It's not like they helped him.
@SueDiOh Oh, I do. ButcGarland had the opportunity to fix their fuckups.
@WarnerCrocker No, he didn't. What kind of case can you bring when all of your witnesses are hostile because they know the Rule of Law will not protect them from a criminal president?
@SueDiOh I don't know the specifics of what kind of case. I do know whatever it was, it should have started in February 2021 instead of November of 22.

@WarnerCrocker @SueDiOh

So building a half-assed case that would get tossed by the gop packed supreme Court on appeal leaving justice still not served, is preferable to building a better case and hope the people are smart enough to not elect the orange freak and make it harder for the scotus to toss the verdict.

He could not have known that so many tech oligarchs would get pissed at Biden for actually enforcing laws and decide to buy out the election.

@pgreer @SueDiOh I don't buy the argument. Sorry. I'm saying he could have started the process sooner, put pressure sooner. Would he have succeeded? Who knows. At least there would have been a fight. As of now, it's just a surrender to madman and probably the end of all of those things we all relied on.

@WarnerCrocker @SueDiOh

The case started in 2021. Most of the co-conspirators were lawyers. Both lawyer-client privilege and Executive privilege fights had to take place to collect evidence.

Plus, DOJ was spread thin by thousands of insurrection cases. You can argue the top down is better than a bottom up approach, but hundreds of guilty pleas point the finger directly at Trump.

Justice is slow for people with good lawyers and $$$. Trump just ran out the clock.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/11/how-garland-whinger-ankush-khardoris-willful-impotence-helps-trump-evade-accountability/

How Garland-Whinger Ankush Khardori's Willful Impotence Helps Trump Evade Accountability - emptywheel

There’s a telling quote from Greg Sargent in his description of Kamala Harris’ difficulties in convincing voters that Trump was a bad president. Some Democrats believe that the leading pro-Harris Super PAC, Future Forward, failed to spend enough of its enormous budget on advertising early on that might have reminded voters of the horrors of […]

emptywheel
@pgreer @SueDiOh That may well be. Smith wasn't appointed until 2022.

@WarnerCrocker @SueDiOh

Yes, a year of warrants and cracking phones collecting evidence so that it could be presented to a grand jury in 2022. Summer of 2022 Grand jury fights over executive privilege to get Trumps former lawyers and the VP Pence to testify. Jack smith appointed in Nov 2022 after Trump declares candidacy so it doesn't look like a political prosecution, but over year of investigation and grand jury testimony was already in the books.

@WarnerCrocker @SueDiOh

Showing that the Oath Keepers and Proud boys who physically started the insurrection were in communication with Trumps people corrected a minor flaw in the impeachment case that GOP reps used to absolve Trump of responsibility.

I will ALWAYS place blame on the republicans for not convicting. Garland did what he could within the laws that we have. He was never a savior, he was a Hail Mary. The people not re-electing Trump was our only hope.

@pgreer @SueDiOh Absolutely the blame goes there as well. But DOJ had the chance, and the GOP invitation, to work to correct that political travesty.
@WarnerCrocker @pgreer Butbutbut... there's a memo...