Summary
Merrick Garland’s failure to swiftly prosecute Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection allowed Trump to run for president again in 2024.
Garland’s slow-walking of the investigation undermined the seriousness of Trump’s actions and normalized him as a Republican front-runner.
Garland’s inaction contributed to the current state of the republic, where Trump is poised to return to the White House.
Just for comparison, the Feds indicted some random person for selling pirated TV shows in 2019 and didn’t get a conviction until this month. That’s five years, and the SCOTUS wasn’t even helping him drag the case out.
Federal cases take a long time when defendants insist on going to trial and dragging things out.
Marric Garland didn’t even start the poccess until over 2.5 years after it happened.
for a better comparison, go with Jack Teixera- the Discord Leaks Guy. After they were discovered, it took all of a week to figure out his identity, arrest him, and secure further leaks.
It took over 6 months to get the documents back- when they knew exactly who had the documents. No investigation necessary. but he didn’t want to be “political.”
And by the way, those documents are literally damning evidence of violating several laws for which most Americans would be hanged.
Also, remember, they didn’t actually get them all back. Some of the worst secrets are still missing.
I’m curious where this narrative that the case only began in 2023 came from. Smith was appointed in November 2022 and the investigation doesn’t necessarily start when the public finds out or when the prosecutor (special or otherwise) is announced.
The leak occurred in 2022, he was indicted in 2023, and he was sentenced in 2024.
And he pled guilty.
What’s your point?
They discovered the leak in 23- about one week before he was arrested.
If you want to go back to when the leak occurred… that started fairly early in trumps presidency.
From the moment the leak was discovered, it took them all of a week to plug it and remove the culprit’s freedom. (Or did you think jack was free to kill around while they waited for an open court date?)
Actually, the important subpoenas started in April of 2021
This is what people don’t get. Garland started immediately. They don’t make big announcements when they start investigating criminals for obvious reasons. The issue is our legal system as a whole.
This is why Trump can say the government is broken and it resonates with people. These things should not take years and years. “Right to a speedy trial” needs to be upheld.
The key word there is “right to.” If someone is willing to have a plea deal or move quickly to trial, they can. But if you want, and have the resources to pay for a lawyer, you can delay the process out for a very long time. Just because you have a right to a speedy trial doesn’t mean you have to exercise that right.
I suggest that we make everyone use a public defender. Problem solved, at least in criminal cases. Nationalize lawyers.
Why would that change speedy trial? Plenty of defendants with PDs waive speedy trial.
The idea that there can be no special cases that demand high priority, even when the case is itself about an attack on the republic, is the failure of blind institutionalism. The public also has a right to know that trials will resolve in a timely manner, especially when the trials are about attacks against the People themselves.
“Justice takes time, let Mueller/Garland/Smith work” was the mantra of failure. There was a fetishization of a higher path, where the machinations of law take as long as they need to, with no deadlines or pressing public questions, but instead of leading to a purer and incontrovertible justice, it led to no justice at all.
Garland (and Biden as the one who appointed him) have a very direct responsibility for the loss of degradation of the American republic. Even should Trump’s term just pass as a bad four years, long-term damage has been done through this failure.
Special cases cut both ways. Judge Cannon and the SCOTUS would agree with you that Trump was a special case, thus delaying the case further.
Judge Chutkan insisted on treating Trump like any other defendant. I think she had the right approach.
Yes, and they were willing to say that and put it into practice. Guess which side was successful? The feigned indifference to any sort of larger picture by people like Chutkan and Garland contributed to this result.