...good source.

K&R

no need to beat on a dead horse.

The FBI took 4 days to investigate Biden properties for classified documents. The FBI took 11 months to investigate only Mar-a-Lago.

nm

What would a Republican President and AG have done if the shoe had been on the other foot and how successful would they have been in convicting a Democratic President who did what Trump did on January 6, 2021?

...who delayed the case unnecessarily by accepting one of the myriad, successive appeals and making rulings that never would have been handed down for a Democratic candidate or president which either set court dates far into the future, or just arbitrarily dismissed the case (Cannon, docs).

Most people don't realize that Meadow, Guiliani, Clark, and others indicted by DOJ and elsewhere had communications and other evidence seized in the Fall of 2021 by prosecutor Tom Windom (who was still in court defending evidence when we voted) which wasn't allowed to be presented to a grand jury until YEARS later.

It was Garland's team, in fact, who argued for over a year in successive courts to have the attorney and other privileges removed from Trump's top lawyers and WH aides and FORCED their testimony which was used in the actual indictment to prosecute Trump.

It's this last point that makes it oh so ridiculous to claim Garland was in the tank for republicans, or was 'meek' or any of the other things that people who spent the entire time attacking the prosecutors instead of Trump and his court defenders.

He could have dismissed the case early, or refused to challenge the privilege claims by the WH at any point, but Garland's lawyers worked through the appointment of Jack Smith, all the way through to defend the evidence they had seized until voters cut them off by voting Trump in again.

gave the appearance to the public that there was nothing to see here. And the right wing media took advantage of that, and enough voters believed it, and trump won, and here we are.

The opinion of this OP is limited at best.

3..2..1 till we see the wall o' words which defends Garland with sound and fury, but which signifies nothing.

Merrick the Meek - May his name be dirt forever more for failing to protect the nation.

...electing an already convicted felon.

Charged and even convicted felons in jail can run for office and get elected and serve.

None of that is within Garland's control.

May the people who stayed home and let Trump in again be remembered for ending a prosecution that was IN COURT when we voted and would be over and done, but for the appeals, if voters had done the right thing.

At no time did Garland refuse to carry out ANY part of the prosecution, and that should be enough for people who appear to have no clue whatsoever what actually occurred in the prosecution; much less what Garland was doing.

I'd like to do the thing that people suggest for Trump and ask them simple details outside of the phony reports that Garland delayed something because of some internal squabble with some FBI agents reported. The bullshit, and incomplete report by Carol Leonning was spread far and wide by word of mouth until it became the BIG LIE that Garland had dragged his feet, basically diverting from the judges and justices who were the actual ones holding up evidence gathered and even dismissing one indictment.

But there aren't any damning articles from Leonning or other critics about the republican judges and justices who delayed the trial until we voted.

Not one fucking word - and I just find that insidiously tragic and weird that Garland took all of the heat for THEIR delays and dismissals of both evidence and charges already brought as the Supreme Court's maga majority did delaying their ruling which just made up law to shield Trump and give him immunity.

If you don't talk about any of that, you're just bashing over 20 prosecutors who worked all the way to the election to try and get Trump before a jury.

What a sham to blame the prosecutors and not mention the judges, justices, or the perps who parried countless ridiculous appeals against their friends on the court.

Wake up people. It's not the Garland prosecutors who are enemies of justice here, it's the republicans and their politically motivated judges and justices who delayed the case; who are STILL THERE making shitty rulings that favor Trump.

I think what's happening here is that people are either too afraid, or too out of their league to actually confront republicans and their compromised judges and call them out. They see Garland as a soft target.

But I partly blame the people like Palin's Nicolle Wallace and the whingers she brought on everyday to bash the people working to prosecute Trump and others as they stood firm against ALL of the challenges and appeals which Garland could have ended at any time if he was 'meek' or any of the other derogation reserved for the people working to hold Trump accountable.

Millions of people voted for Donald Trump in 2024 despite plenty of evidence that he's a lying criminal.

We need to figure out why and stop looking for legal solutions.

(I somewhat disagree that "Hillary didn't lose because of Comey." I think his behavior - and the media's breathless response - might have been the deciding factor.)

the "bottom up" strategy anymore.
Also, he didn't get elected in 2016 ONLY because of James Comey, but it was a factor. Just as Garland is not SOLELY responsible for Trump in 2024, but his failure to get Trump to trial in a timely way contributed.
Those are Strawman arguments.

were happy voting for a criminal anyway".

Well, yes, but "maybe Garland's slowness didn't make a difference" is not much of an exoneration. Yes, the Supreme Court has been horribly-pro-Trump-can-do-no-wrong, but "Garland is no worse than the 6 conservatives on the SC" is not an exoneration either. And "Republican voters were happy voting for a guy convicted of hard-to-understand campaign finance violations to cover up a one night stand with an adult film star" is different from "Republican voters would have been happy voting for a guy convicted of inciting an attempted coup, or of stealing classified documents". Sure, some would have been happy, but the seriousness of charges that Garland never got to court may well have put some voters off.

I said in 2024 that the Democrats should have been talking about the sexual assault jury decision a fuck of a lot more, and I still maintain that - look at how Epstein is a problem for Trump. Sure, E. Jean Carroll was an adult woman, but it was still assault, and as the judge pointed out, "rape" in common parlance and in some jurisdictions. Garland wasn't the only person to miss opportunities to hold Trump to account.

...because almost all of the time passed, the significant portion, was almost all due to the scheduling of hearings by Trump-friendly judges and justices ruling both in his favor and against him on the myriad, withering, successive appeals by perps over evidence seized.

"It’s not that I think Garland’s caution was the correct posture. I am actually open to the possibility that Garland and his redoubtable deputy, Lisa Monaco, were too slow in opening what became the investigation of Trump. I am also open to the possibility that had they acted more swiftly, prosecutors may well have been able to file one of the two federal cases against Trump earlier than they did.
...
But let’s imagine for a moment that the Justice Department had managed to get an indictment done and filed within a year after Trump left office, which is to say Jan. 20, 2022. This is, roughly speaking, a year and a half earlier than it managed the task in fact. This would account for both the year that the investigation appears, at least publicly, to have been a bit sluggish getting off the ground and, let’s hypothesize, the difference between a cautious attorney general who wants to follow norms and a “damn the torpedoes” attorney general who doesn’t mind blowing them up in order to bring Trump to justice as soon as humanly possible. And let’s imagine as well that the indictment was of a reasonable quality notwithstanding the rush. Would things have been different?
...
To be clear, I am not saying that the investigation was handled with optimal speed. And I have a lot of questions about a number of choices regarding both the Jan. 6 investigation and the classified documents case. Most pointedly, I have never understood the decision to bring the classified documents case in Florida, rather than to try to establish venue in Washington, D.C., using the many points at which Trump’s alleged conduct interacted with the jurisdiction of the federal government in Washington.

All of these questions, including the speed question, are legitimate."

...I'll just post my summary of Garland's DOJ's efforts (which contains actual facts and details, unlike Ben here who just repeats the 'Garland' slow' meme in his own words) and just let that stand as my response.



source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/28/us/politics/trump-investigation-thomas-windom.html

from December 2022:



source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/

...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 (is he to blame for the pardons, as well?)

He was already getting cooperation from the riot leaders before he formally turned to the WH, and none of that happened on the spur of the moment.

We need to be real about the challenges for the incoming AG, and stop assuming he cared any less about these crimes than any of us. Almost ALL of the evidence Smith 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

when everyone could see Trump would try to get elected again. There were time constraints. The violent rioters on the day were not the main concern - it was the megalomaniac who wanted to lead a coup, and who could get elected again if the electorate wasn't shown the best case for how he was responsible.

....you act as if Garland was the only prosecutor to be deliberate about gathering evidence before they charged Trump.

Investigations involve more than just seizing evidence. Think about what goes into a decision to issue subpoenas and don't suppose that it happens on a dime.

NEW AG who is investigating and prosecuting over a thousand rioters at the same time, sucessfully, I might add for all of the people who claim he's in the bag for republicans or Trump.

If you don't address the myriad appeals successive appeals all the way up to the maga majority on the Supreme Court, you're not talking about the actual prosecution, you're debating the internet fantasy prosecution.

The indictments that dropped 15 months were more than enough time for a trial without the interference of the courts.

And if you claim that going earlier would have solved the problem of compromised judges and justices, you're naive about how they operate.

Fact is, if we had done the job of keeping an already convicted felon out of office, we'd be looking at another felony conviction.

Garland was the Attorney General. It was his job to get the other prosecutors charging Trump, in time to conclude a court case before the 2024 election - as far before as practical.

Yes, it would have been a hell of a lot better to get a conviction, and then watch Trump try and appeal. That is indeed why I'm not addressing the appeals. The "actual prosecution" didn't happen. That's the problem.

Anyway, you wanted to know where "slow" came from, and it comes from lawyers who know a lot about prosecutions.

...and you have no evidence to the contrary.

and the delays that have been mentioned in this thread.

...you completely ignore that, even as the case was before Judge Chutkan, the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity for 'official acts' which forced Smith to revise the charges to counter that interference by the maga majority months before the election.

September 5, 2024

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Thursday accused Donald Trump's lawyers of trying to stop potentially damaging evidence of his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss from becoming public before the Nov. 5 election, while acknowledging the case would not go to trial before then.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan also gave prosecutors what is likely their last chance to divulge evidence in the case before the election, ordering Special Counsel Jack Smith to respond by Sept. 26 to a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution.

Thomas Windom, a prosecutor in Smith's office, told Chutkan prosecutors were prepared to reveal potentially new evidence in their filing to argue that their remaining case against Trump is not affected by the high court's ruling and should proceed to trial.

A revised indictment obtained by Smith in August preserved the same four charges first brought last year, but dropped allegations the Supreme Court found could not remain part of the case.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-judge-weigh-path-forward-100455749.html

...did you want them to investigate the rioter's ties to the Trump WH, or not?


Several months after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, FBI investigators began pursuing a tantalizing tip suggesting that Donald Trump had possibly met with members of the Proud Boys, the far-right group that took part in some of the most brutal violence that day, people briefed on the investigation told CNN.
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For months, the FBI and a team of prosecutors looked for potential links between Trump’s inner circle and the Proud Boys, whose leader was ultimately found guilty of seditious conspiracy and is serving 22 years in prison, the longest sentence of any January 6 defendant.

Investigators spent much of that summer poring over call records of Proud Boys members and conducting scores of interviews. They homed in on a period in late 2020, when an informant alleged an interaction between Trump or his inner circle and the Proud Boys occurred.

Prosecutors inside the Justice Department also dug through reams of opaque financial records, searching for any direct links between Trump and the organizations that brought “Stop the Steal” rallygoers to Washington for his speech ahead of the Capitol attack. From there, they examined the so-called war room setup at the Willard hotel in Washington, where Steve Bannon and other Trump supporters strategized how to thwart the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

In the end, no direct criminal links to Trump emerged. The suspected Proud Boys meeting, the Willard hotel room and the rally fundraising were all dead ends.

“The evidence just wasn’t there,” one former Justice Department official told CNN.

While federal investigators continued to pursue Trump over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, mostly done in plain sight, they always faced long odds and a ticking political clock. The countdown compressed as Trump went from party pariah to inevitable Republican nominee, and expired once he won reelection.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-judge-weigh-path-forward-100455749.html

...also, if you take the time to read Smith's revised indictment reissued in September 2024, you'll see references to the Willard Hotel and passages about Trump influencing the rioters to attack the Capitol.

and reported to the public. In September 2024! Way too late.

"acknowledging the case would not go to trial before then"

Imagine if they'd had 20 months before the election, not 2?

Slow. Slow. Slow.

...really specious to claim otherwise.

March 2024

___Trump’s immunity claims froze the case for months, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is now poised to set a schedule and announce next steps.

The case is not expected to reach trial before this year’s presidential election, when Trump hopes to retake the White House and dismantle the prosecution.

But the judge could tee up an evidentiary hearing that effectively becomes a mini-trial before November, as the judge mulls how to apply the Supreme Court’s new immunity test to the specifics of the GOP nominee’s indictment.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to begin jury selection on March 4 comes after special counsel Jack Smith’s team asked for a Jan. 2, 2024, trial date, while Trump’s team suggested a trial date in April 2026.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4174750-trump-federal-jan-6-case-set-for-trial-in-march-2024/

... and, Smith obtained a grand jury indictment against Trump in the classified documents case in June 2023, and then Trump was indicted in the election case in August 2023., MORE than enough time to try him without republicans in the courts interfering.

Reaching over all of the interference from judges and justices right in front of us to blame the prosecutors who indicted Trump some 15 months before the election is really something.

The DOJ is an executive branch department with executive branch resources. They could have moved as fast as they wanted with as many resources as they wanted. I'm sick of these turf protecting apologetics for Merrick Garland. He was an incompetent boob, and Biden was fearful of anything Trump, because it might "look political." And that is the reason why Trump did not get brought to justice, disqualified from running for office and put in prison for insurrection. If the party labels were switched, the whole entourage would be occupying cells at Guantanamo right now, that's how the GOP would have handled it.

Garland was handed a Congressional investigation with mountains of evidence. He should have had a prosecuting team waiting, receiving that in real time, and brought charges to issue indictments based on all of that. The possibilities were endless, according to individuals as distinguished and experienced as Joyce Vance and Jill Wine-Banks.

The Democrats had control of both houses and the White House, starting in 2021. Were it not for the turf-protecting, job protecting desire to remain in office forever, we might have had enough members of the house and senate with the guts and fortitude to pack the Supreme Court early in Biden's term, overturn Citizens United, undo all of that ridiculous Presidential immunity crap, saved Roe and blew all of Trump's dilly dallying delays out of the water, and gotten both the insurrection case and the document theft case into court in January of 2023 at the very latest. That's what competent, and resolute politicians would have done.

Try and argue that point, huh? That if we had done this, we would not be where we are now. And explain why Democrats weren't willing to take the risk and use their power, huh?

...Garland's man who began collecting evidence in the fall of 2021, Tom Windom, was still in court defending the evidence he collected against appeals when we voted.

Who looks at charges brought almost FIFTEEN MONTHS before the election and delayed by the Supreme Court right up until just before we voted, and blames the prosecutors?

Who is blaming prosecutors right now, for that matter, for prosecuting that people claim wasn't happening.

Where's your evidence to back up your claims?

Where's you evidence that the DOJ could have brought a case in 2023? Where is that brilliant document of charges. Where's the list? Where's the evidence that you claim was ready to be presented to a grand jury, which is what the federal government uses to bring charges forward?

Where's your proof that there was actual evidence available to be presented to a grand jury, not to mention to a court in 2023, not just internet babble?

Take a simple minute and read the Smith report which outlined the extraordinary number of appeals and challenges, most of them eventually successfully argued by Garland's team of prosecutors, even through Smith;s appointment.

Just saying that these things could have been done quickly isn't proof at all. Prove it. What you claim is absurd, and ignores so much that it's clear you have no idea what Garland's prosecutors were actually doing.

People like to tell me I'm some sop for Garland, but what I'm not is a patsy or dupe for seemingly uninformed, nonfactual claims about Garland and his prosecutors.

And as I mentioned, among others, Joyce Vance and Jill Wine-Banks, both former federal prosecutors, blow this tripe out of the water, pointing to the resources and to the ability that the DOJ had to push the courts. Defending Garland is making excuses, and is just one more reason why I no longer financially contribute to the Democratic party, or to its status quo candidates. The Congressional investigation handed them their case, and that was the expectation. Otherwise, it was six months of wasting time.

But gee, I wouldn't want to disturb your continued defense of the incompetent boob Garland. He will go down in history as the man who let Trump get back into the White House. And you can't change that, no matter how many fictional accounts of what he actually did come to the surface. He admitted he dragged his feet, because he was scared of looking political. That's the bottom line.

Where was all of this excuse making when he was dragging his feet, doing nothing, while Democrats across the country were thinking they finally got Trump? How does someone get away with more than 90 crimes for which they've been indicted? Incompetent prosecution. Merrick Garland. This was a huge Democratic goof and a big Biden mistake. That's the way it is and we can either accept it and move on and not make the same mistake again, or we can come up with massive convoluted excuses to fob the blame off somewhere else and watch our democracy burn to the ground.

...very little of what Congress uncovered and presented was used in either prosecution.

Congress actually focused on the links between protestors and the Trump WH, the 'foot soldiers that all the critics deride Garland for zeroing in on first, and if you bother to look at the actual investigation you will see that the Garland DOJ immediately set about investigating just that, BEFORE Congress held one hearing.

There wasn't ONE top Trump lawyer or aide investigated by Congress, who's testimony GARLAND's prosecutors forced by fighting through successive courts to have their attorney or other privileges removed, and who's testimony is KEY in the actual indictments.

Not one Trump WH official, just sassy Hutchinson whose testimony legal novices believed was going to be as consequential as all of the internet and teevee fantasy prosecutors told them it would be.

As if his reputation was the important thing right now.

...who is actually attacking Trump's prosecutors in 2025?

WHO?

Justice Department purge continues; firings include Trump classified document case investigators and Jan. 6 prosecutors
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/justice-department-firings-include-trump-investigators-jan-6-prosecutors/

'Selective and vindictive prosecution': Trump court filing wildly attacks Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, and DOJ after decision not to charge Biden over classified docs
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/selective-and-vindictive-prosecution-trump-court-filing-wildly-attacks-jack-smith-merrick-garland-and-doj-after-decision-not-to-charge-biden-over-classified-docs/

DOJ fires members of special counsel Jack Smith's team who prosecuted Trump
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-fires-members-special-counsel-jack-smiths-team/story?id=118155822

It was clear from the start that Merrick wasn’t up to the job. Merrick could have continued prosecuting the Jan 6 rioters and allowed Mr Smith to do the heavy lifting.

...CNN reported that Smith took over a 'fast moving investigation' which had already gathered more evidence than when Mueller took over his probe.



https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/index.html

"including from a year-long financial probe that’s largely flown under the radar."

And told them they belonged. He's a constant entertainer.

I despise him but we need to figure out a new game. The Democratic brand is suffering.

We need to remind people what we stand for: Equal rights, equal protections under the law, affordable healthcare and housing, a strong public school system, clean air and water, a living wage.

And we need to communicate to the American voter our vision how choosing a democratic candidate over a republican will lead to a better future for them.

I criticize what he did or didn't do.

This is what I think of Garland;

1. Why, when Krasnov fired James Comey did Mike Lee, a rabid MAGAt Senator, tell Krasnov to replace Comey with Garland? (I do not expect an answer)

2. I cannot prove that Garland was a member of the Federalist Society, but what kind of person would moderate 11 Federalist Society events? I believe that the Federalist Society should be designated a terrorist organization, not joking. ( I do not expect an answer)