Charges Merrick Garland delayed or dragged his feet on the investigation are proven false in the Smith report
...they persisted because most of the substantive details of the investigation initiated by AG Garland's prosecutors in 2021 were kept secret by DOJ, except for court filings and what the perps revealed.
Now we have a report in which Jack Smith defends the AG against those charges, outlining how delays which the myriad appeals and challenges made by the perps subpoenaed for evidence and testimony often stretched out for months and years, not always ovelapping, and stretching out for years, well into the Smith appointment with Garland prosecutors defending those key pieces of evidence and testimony in courts well into his term.
Politico touched on this yesterday:
You have to wonder what journos and pundits like Carol Leonning are thinking today, trying to decide whether to double down on their false reporting that there was some delay or indecision from the AG about proceeding to prosecute Trump and his henchmen, or equivocate.
Many people inside DOJ strongly believe this . As one told us - “without the Jan 6 committee I’m convinced there wouldn’t have been a DOJ investigation into Trump’s role.”
Like most of Garland's critics, she should actually read people like Marcy Wheeler who has spent the years since that intrepid WaPo reporter wrote the article that was repeated and embellished by countless people to subvert and demagogue the efforts of the AG, including notables like Weissmann who spouted off those exact lies about the Garland's efforts as if he had some inside knowledge of a secret investigatory process; he just read from her article and embellished her misinformation with derision and hyper-concern.
here's Marcy:
(Critics) complained today that DOJ pursued the money trail and suspected communications with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers immediately, both of which theories had solid evidence (likely arising from the mishandled Brandon Straka prosecution and the Owen Shroyer arrest) behind them. The money trail ended up being a dry hole; the comms angle ended up being inconclusive. But that’s the kind of thing Goodman and his ilk were demanding in real time — multiple prongs to pursue the case. Follow the money!
Instead, prosecutors’ most productive 2021 efforts appears to be getting an SDNY judge to allow DOJ to use the existing Special Master review for phones seized from Rudy Giuliani in April 2021 to prioritize obtaining the January 6 content. DOJ started with Co-Conspirator #1, and did so in a way that Trump had limited ability to obstruct. And from there, they seized one after another phone: John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark in June 2022, Scott Perry in August 2022, Boris Epshteyn and Mike Roman in September 2022, all of which would have had delays (not reflected in Jack Smith’s report because none of those have been unsealed) because of attorney-client, Speech and Debate, or technical exploitation issues, yet all of which would have been necessary given their reliance on encrypted apps. (This post argues that Smith likely didn’t get the content of Roman and Epshteyn’s phones until after he first indicted Trump.) You were never going to avoid getting the co-conspirator phones, because this coup was planned on encrypted apps and all of them fought disclosure. It appears that DOJ opportunistically seized the first of those on the first day there was a confirmed DAG to approve doing so. It is also clear that that wasn’t enough.
But if you’re going to make these complaints about what you read in Jack Smith’s report, you should note what else Smith said. The January 6 Committee work “comprised a small part of the Office’s investigative record,” but before Smith could use anything from J6C, prosecutors first had to “develop[] or verif[y those facts] through independent interviews and other investigative steps.”
The Office’s investigation included consideration of the report issued on December 22, 2022, by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, as well as certain materials received from the Committee. Those materials comprised a small part of the Office’s investigative record, and any facts on which the Office relied to make a prosecution decision were developed or verified through independent interviews and other investigative steps. During the prosecution of the Election Case, Mr. Trump alleged that the Select Committee and Special Counsel’s Office were one and the same and sought additional discovery about the Select Committee’s work. The district court rejected the claim. See ECF No. 263 at 47 (concluding that Mr. Trump has “not supplied an adequate basis to consider the January 6 Select Committee part of the prosecution team”). Regardless, the Office provided or otherwise made available to Mr. Trump in discovery all materials received from the Select Committee. See ECF No. 263 at 47 (“the Government states that it has already produced all the records it received from the Committee”).
We know from the immunity appendix that Jack Smith had productive follow-up interviews with Bill Barr, Ronna McDaniel, and Jason Miller, among others, to say nothing about more extensive cooperation with Eric Herschmann and Mike Pence’s privilege-waived interview(s).
But validating what J6C did could not start until J6C released transcripts in December 2022, after a 3-7 month delay.
more:https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/01/15/what-jack-smith-didnt-say-about-the-january-6-investigation/
thread:
Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
NEW: Jack Smith defended Garland’s pace, laying out DOJ’s frenetic, secretive efforts to win privilege fights with recalcitrant witnesses — Scott Perry, Mike Pence, John Eastman — that took months.
More takeaways from the Smith report. w/ @joshgerstein
https://politico.com/news/2025/01/14/jack-smith-special-counsel-report-takeaways-00198252
related:
Merrick Garland is Getting a Bum Rap
The claim that he is responsible for Trump’s evasion of accountability is clearly wrong.
https://harrylitman.substack.com/p/merrick-garland-is-getting-a-bum
= new reply since forum marked as read
from December 2022:
...so the financial investigation began in earnest in late 2021. Garland took his oath in March of that year.
He not only handled the Capitol riot prosecutions which resulted in over 1200 convictions, but ran the Trump probe at the same time. He was already getting cooperation from the riot leaders before he formally turned to the WH, and none of that happens on the spur of the moment.
We need to be real about the challenges for an incoming AG, and stop assuming he cared any less about these crimes than any of us. Almost ALL of the evidence he used in the indictments came from his boss's team, and his DOJ defended all of it in myriad, successive courts to make it available to use in grand juries and in courts.
Smith reportedly came onboard a 'fast moving investigation' and inherited over 20 Garland prosecutors who had already gathered more evidence than Mueller had when he took charge of his own investigation.
receipts:
From Mike Pence to ‘fake’ electors, here’s who has testified to the January 6 grand jury or met with prosecutors
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/politics/grand-jury-testimony-list-january-6-trump/index.html
...the rest of the critics have done nothing but draft off what was described as some internal dispute that had nothing to do with the actual delay described in the Smith report, with judges and justices delaying the trial over a year after the indictments came down, most notably, the Supreme Court which deliberately held it up for months until right before the election before making a decision that caused the SC to revise the indictment.
They had no actual way yo know anything of substance about the investigation when it was ongoing. Neither Garland or Smith leaked anything, so they just made it up, leaving all sorts of things out; distorting others like some internal FBI dispute which changed nothing and affected nothing; and spreading this lie that the AG was inactive for a year (which I saw from a poster today, was actually 2 years).
It's been a flurry of uninformed and misinforming lies from people who had no access at all to the actual investigation, but talked like they were part of the team. No wonder so much of what they claimed is disputed by clear facts.
We all saw the SC bring an indictment with more than enough time to try Trump, but some are insisting on giving cover to the judges and justices who deliberately held the trial up until we voted as if Trumpers on the bench had any intention of letting this go to trial before the election.
Are folks really so naive as to believe the court system received these indictments with open arms? Did they just ignore the constant appeals with hearing dates set exclusively by judges and justices set far into the future, not to mention their eventual rulings?
You're using the result of their deliberate interference as a foil against the people actually working to get this thing to trial, having brought charges over a year earlier. Why are you blaming DOJ for the shithole court system?
Garland began investigating the Trump WH in 2021, extensively, including a year-long investigation into their finances.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/us/politics/trump-investigation-thomas-windom.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/index.html
....all of these perps challenged their subpoenas to appear and testify before the grand jury, and some key witnesses weren't available to the DOJ until at least 2023 when they were able to dispatch the appeals before panels of judges.
From Mike Pence to ‘fake’ electors, here’s who has testified to the January 6 grand jury or met with prosecutors
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/politics/grand-jury-testimony-list-january-6-trump/index.html
...and we know that the 'political' consideration here was his boss running against the person he was investigating, very likely as nominee in the upcoming election.
That's not an unusual consideration, and Jack Smith has an entire section in his report explaining the challenges and considerations they made in that regard which weren't anything more than acknowledging those. That's why we got an SC when Trump announced - not because it's some normal part of the proceeding.
That appointment was described as inheriting a 'fast-moving investigation' with over 20 Garland prosecutors moving to work under Smith. That doesn't sound like a department that was flat-footed, rather it represents a DOJ that was fully engaged in investigating Trump all throughout.
That's why we have evidence in the indictment, because Garland's prosecutors collected it and defended it all in myriad appeals in successive courts packed with republicans.
Indeed, Deputy AG Lisa Monaco had directed attorney Tom Windom to begin formally investigating the Trump WH in the Fall of 2021; especially their finances related to the perps who rioted at the Capitol, looking for ties between them and the Trump administration.
Who the fuck objects to that? I'd like one of the critics to explain to me how that's not investigating the Trump WH. More than that, Garland investigators seized phone and other communications at the same time from perps involved in the fake elector scheme.
You'd have to just close your eyes and imagine all of that away to make the nonsense about Garland waiting for something true. It just isn't, and the evidence supports me on that.
receipts:
Garland began investigating the Trump WH in 2021, extensively, including a year-long investigation into their finances.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/us/politics/trump-investigation-thomas-windom.html
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/index.html
....all of these perps challenged their subpoenas to appear and testify before the grand jury, and some key witnesses weren't available to the DOJ until at least 2023 when they were able to dispatch the appeals before panels of judges.
From Mike Pence to ‘fake’ electors, here’s who has testified to the January 6 grand jury or met with prosecutors
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/11/politics/grand-jury-testimony-list-january-6-trump/index.html