Warner Crocker
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
Warner Crocker
@CindyWeinstein Each works.
Cindy Weinstein
So true. Ignominy is spot-on. Another word I've recently seen on mastodon that ought to make a comeback:
lickspittle
I suggest abjection.
SueDiOh
@WarnerCrocker Blame Mitch McConnell and the GOP. It's not like they helped him.
Warner Crocker
@SueDiOh Oh, I do. ButcGarland had the opportunity to fix their fuckups.
SueDiOh
@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?
Warner Crocker
@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.
No Gods , no Masters! RESIST
@WarnerCrocker
President Biden's biggest mistake.
Duke
@WarnerCrocker IMO, Ol' Milquetoast Merrick did exactly what he was hired to do--nothing.The "elites" don't care if we have rule of law or not, because they're protected either way. They know that resources are becoming scarce, and that such a tiny fraction of us are truly self-sufficient. They'll happily sit back and watch us devour each other, while they keep us all dependent on their rigged system. Destroying our illusions of 'control' is a necessary step in turning us against each other.
MemphisDaPlaya 🎲🎲
@WarnerCrocker
Not a critical thinker, was he.
Warner Crocker
@GoatRoper Perhaps a critical over thinker.
MemphisDaPlaya 🎲🎲
Yes! To say he is a disappointment is a colossal understatement.
SueDiOh
@WarnerCrocker Mueller let us down, too.
Matthew Sheffield
@WarnerCrocker Garland should have indicted Trump as soon as he had left office. Mitch McConnell in the impeachment literally encouraged the DOJ to do it.
Garland's failure to move quickly will be his only real legacy.
HTPC NZ
@WarnerCrocker when Barbarians are at your gate calling for your head on a stake, if you choose to do nothing and not take up arms & fight because you beleive or worse want make it look like you are stooping down to their level by doing so, good luck.
Warner Crocker
@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.
Phil Greer
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.
SueDiOh
@pgreer @WarnerCrocker I wish he would have moved faster, too, but you only get one shot, and it's easy to forget how many times the courts blocked him.
Warner Crocker
@SueDiOh @pgreer Well, we've all lost. And if folks who care are writing history sometime down the road, he'll get the much deserved blame.
SueDiOh
@WarnerCrocker @pgreer Yes, and he deserves some of it, but not all. Biden could have replaced him.
Wiley Miller
@WarnerCrocker
The irony is, which goes right over Garland’s head, is that his decision for inaction because he didn’t want to appear political was a political decision.
MemphisDaPlaya 🎲🎲
He seems bashful. Maybe he should get his teeth fixed to help him get over his low self-esteem?
Warner Crocker
@pgreer @SueDiOh That may well be. Smith wasn't appointed until 2022.
Phil Greer
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.
Warner Crocker
@pgreer @SueDiOh Granted. But this, to my mind, was a case that needed to be made publicly sooner. The same was true with Congress. I get the rules, traditions and norms, etc... We're on the verge of none of those existing anymore anyway. So here we are.
Phil Greer
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.
Warner Crocker
@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.
Phil Greer
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.
Warner Crocker
@pgreer @SueDiOh Valid point. But isn't that always baked in from both a media and legal representation perspective? The alleged always proclaims innocence loudly.
As for the media covering things correctly? Well, that's an entirely different kettle of fish.
Phil Greer
But then you need the media to cover it correctly, and they completely failed at everything regarding Trump and this election.
You would get headlines like "Trump says he is innocent" or "Trump says there is no proof" meanwhile somewhere on paragraph 14 it might says something about what is in the indictment.
How many reporters are still covering the ongoing insurrection cases?
SueDiOh
@WarnerCrocker @pgreer Butbutbut... there's a memo...
Warner Crocker
@pgreer @SueDiOh I won't disagree with your list. I'd add a preamble. What we're living through is a plan hatched when Newt Gringrich was Speaker and controlled the GOP. It's been slowly inching forward over the years. Trump allowed the pace to accelerate rapidly. And here we are.
Phil Greer
6) democratic party for not messaging this problem correctly or presenting a more attractive alternative when there is so much racism and misogyny in this country, but group 4 and 5 make that more difficult.
and finally
7) Biden's DOJ and Garland who are the very last resort when all the checks and balances above fail.
So the last resort failed but then so did 6 other lines above it. Much more blame sits on the first 6 groups.
Phil Greer
For me the blame goes:
1) the supreme court and the citizens united decision allowing
2) Wealthy donor class buying elections
3) Republican party for not standing up to those in group 2
4) media for utter failure to cover this era correctly (owned by group 2)
5) the voters of this country for having the memory and attention span of a gnat with ADHD (no offense to those with ADHD)
(....more....)
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