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Biden Justice Department slow-walked key decisions in Trump legal probes (www.msnbc.com)
submitted 9 months ago by to c/politics@lemmy.world
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Acting on a mix of principle and caution, Justice Department officials under former President Joe Biden made a series of decisions that significantly delayed and ultimately may have hampered the federal criminal investigations into President Donald Trump, according to a new book.

The slow decision-making at the top of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Justice Department affected two major probes into Trump after he lost the White House in 2020: whether he illegally possessed and obstructed the retrieval of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence, and whether he conspired illegally to overturn the 2020 election.

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[–] 8 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Except that this article is pointing out the opposite of that. It wasn't "incompetence and corruption" that got us here. It was integrity and thoroughness that led to those cases being slowed down. They followed the law and made sure that what they were doing was correct and fair.

The problem with that strategy, was that Republicans were not doing that. They were rapidly implementing their plans to take advantage of Democrats adherence to protocol and the rule of law.

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  • [–] 12 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    The problem with that strategy, was that Republicans were not doing that.

    So it was a bad strategy. End of argument.

    If you are actively strategizing, planning around what your enemies are NOT doing isn't strategy, it's stupidity. And it is what Dems have been doing for decades. They just want to blame Republicans for their complete lack of foresight rather than ever be accountable for letting the GOP cuck every single policy of theirs. Now to the point of undoing hundreds of years of legal precedent and progress.

    The time for integrity and thoroughness had long since passed before Biden took office, so using it to defeat Trump was about as effective as using a fax machine to share memes. Being anything but aggressive after an active coup attempt that miraculously failed is astronomically naive at best.

    But Biden was handed a literal democracy destroying shotgun with one barrel labeled "complete legal immunity" and the other "infinite executive authority" and he looked at that gift from the Supreme Court and decided it was best left to the next president to use. Oops wasnt Kamala. So now instead of Biden expanding the executive branch to control congressional decisions such as how many members of the Supreme Court there are, Trump is doing it to consolidate complete power and authority.

    Our Supreme Court built a political Nuclear Bomb, that was 100% going to be used by Trump to destroy this country, and they gifted it to Biden first. His decision to not benevolently use it to destroy the holes in our Democracy MAGA has infested doomed us to be a corpse eaten by those MAGAT's.

    This article is PR for those who failed to protect our country to feel better about it. They failed. They sucked at their job by using clearly outdated strategies, and they did it despite our literal democracy being on the line. I do not blame the unstoppable force that is the MAGA GOP, I blame the Democrats who acted as tin cans for decades when they swore they could be immovable objects. Glad this article clears up the fact they literally never could be.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I get the frustration, but just because Trump has found ways to game the system, doesn't mean throwing the system out, is going to be any better. Once both sides abandon the rule of law, then there is nothing left to keep shit from going way off the rails.

    So, unless you are fully prepared to go to actual war to solve your problems, the legal system is still your only option. And despite what you might think, that system has been holding him back this entire time. He is losing far more cases in court than people realize. It's just that the media covers his wins more than his many losses...because his wins are scarier. And scary gets more clicks. And even when most of his wins get quickly overturned again, they simply don't get talked about anymore.

    The bottom line comes down to "what kind of country do you want to live in?" One where whoever is in charge at the moment can just unilaterally declare their enemies to be criminals and summarily punish them, without due process...or one where you have the right to defend yourself in court against that kind of tyranny. If your solution to Trump, is to just be more like Trump, then all you're really doing is fighting for a system exactly like the one he wants.

    If you want a system that stands in opposition to his methods, then you can't just use his own methods to oppose him.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago*

    You're not making a bad argument. Just the wrong one.

    The system we have is now whatever Trump wants it to be. Going back to the system we had previously would now be just as radical as changing it into one that actually benefits us.

    The system we had lead to Trump. Period. Why would you want that again?

    Ask yourself: when should we go back to exactly?

    Back to before the Patriot Act robbed us of our constitutional right to privacy?

    Back before no child left behind made our graduating high schoolers functionally illeterate?

    Back before Citizens United allowed corpate power to influence every single election for decades denying you minimum wage, universal Healthcare, or literally anything that would detract from corporate profits over public welfare?

    Back before Reaganomics then?

    Maybe further back before the business plot of 1933 to overthrow the government in place of business nepotism?

    Or maybe before all the Tariffs we passed in the 1920's that accelerated the great depression?

    100 years later we literally have the same problems. Just without the benefit of actually stopping them from destroying our government.

    Half the white house is missing. An elected congress person isn't being sworn in. Our own military is in our cities and it's to protect masked police deporting some citizens with no due prosses.

    This is not a future we reached by mistake. It is a future that was inevitable given the limitations of our existing system, combined with the centuries sociopaths have had to game it. We should not go back to it. It will just lead us here again.

    It would be far better to use as a model for a better system. Certainly many other countries already have. But do not let nostalgia blind you to the fact that the problems in the system we have are inherent, and they are not fixable from within using the systems tools. They allow for exploits to grow, and after a hundred years, fail entirely in containing them effectively.

    During WW2, a very difficult decision was made to use nuclear weapons. Killing hundreds of thousands to stop millions from dying. If they were not dropped the losses in the south pacific would be well over 8 million dead.

    The argument you are currently making, given the WW2 context, is for us not to drop the bomb. Despite us already being at a point where Orange Hitler is about to destroy Snap benefits killing millions more than USAID closing and COVID already have.

    There is no more normal course of action given the current situation. And there hasn't been for quite some time. Just because Democrats haven't noticed that in decades, doesn't mean they ever will. This article confirms they won't, and was written as PR for people like you to believe otherwise.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    They're saying the (current) justice department's allegations that the case was politically motivated is undermined by how slow the investigation went, AND that some insiders at the time thought it was moving too slowly. It can be both, and we're stuck with the consequences of not holding Trump accountable for at least 3 more years.

    I stand by what I said. They act like they're above the law because Democrats are too corrupt and incompetent to apply the law to them. With this kind of opposition, they are above the law.

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  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Honestly, I agree that it should have started faster...but that wasn't "corruption" or even "incompetence"...it was caution. If they had given the appearance of bias, it would have undermined their entire case, just like how that appearance of bias is currently undermining Trump's cases against his own enemies.

    Was it maybe too much caution...yes. But only because in the end, they ran out of time. If the Supremes Court hadn't stepped in, and forced them to re-file the charges at the last minute, Donald Trump would be in prison right now instead of the Oval office. The "corruption" in this case, wasn't coming from the Democrats. It was coming from the Supreme Court.

    But, aside from that, what Jack Smith and his team used, was good methodology. They followed every procedure to the letter, and cut no corners. Those cases were airtight. As opposed to Trump's rushed indictments, that are falling apart in court. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this...and it has nothing to do with anyone's "opinion" about who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are. That is decided by the evidence.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Being overly cautious and therefore failing to enact justice is incompetence. They weren't just following the rules, they were creating a wide fence around them so no one code possibly claim they weren't following them. And in the process they didn't enact justice, allowing corruption and fascism to fester and grow, and still didn't insulate the investigation from political attacks of "bias" that have never been based on actual actions in the first place.

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  • [–] -4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    But, that's not incompetence...that's caution.

    Incompetence is what you see Lindsey Halligan doing in her cases against James Comey and Leticia James. Even just filing those cases shows a total lack of understanding of how the legal system works.

    Incompetence is how Trump's lawyers in Portland, lied about how many Federal agents were required to "keep the peace" there, without realizing those numbers could be independently verified.

    In all of these cases, they're going to lose. And those cases aren't just going to be thrown out...the lawyers that brought them in the first place, are probably going to face consequences for trying them. It's Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell, all over again. That's what incompetence looks like.

    If they had been more competent, they would have shown far more caution than they did.

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  • [–] 4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    So someone who's driving an organ across town for a transplant and takes 10 minutes leaving the parking lot to wait for a completely clear road without a single car in sight and then slows approaching every intersection in case the light turns yellow and then finally triple checks with management that all the forms have been received and validated, leading to the patient dying, isn't incompetent?

    No, just no. Unwarranted caution is incompetence just as much as insufficient caution, and this was egregious. And this is assuming the story and actions were errors in decision making rather than political direction (which would then be corruption). There's no possible way an error of this magnitude over this long a time with this great a consequence can be described as just a competent and upstanding civil servant trying to do a good job.

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  • [–] -3 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    In that analogy, are saying the driver should not slow down at all...even when running through red lights? First of all, you're assuming there's no one else on the road. But if that's your strategy, then that organ isn't going to make it to its destination. That guy's going to get t-boned before he gets there.

    What you're calling "unwarranted caution" really is a matter of perspective. Since you can't control every possible variable along the route, you have to use some degree of caution, or you're going to get hit. It's just a matter of how much caution, and that's also impossible to know in advance.

    Sure...maybe you get lucky and everyone else on the road gives you a wide berth, and nothing goes wrong. But in this case, there's also someone out there actively trying to stop you from making that delivery. And that being the case, all your lack of caution does is provide them with more opportunities to stop you.

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  • [–] 10 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    The kind of apologetics demonstrated in this comment is why we can't look towards politics for solutions towards the problem we as a people face.

    There will always be a useful idiot ready to come in and make excuses for the failures of the Democratic party, of Democratic strategy, of the normalcy which is modern corporate cargo-cult neoliberalism. Democrats are never failures; they can only ever be failed.

    And the acceptance of the normalization; this quaint framing that the Democrats are the good guys, goodie-twoshoes, rule followers (when the "rules" are largely just made up), and "just trying to do the right thing"; this constant willingness to excuse their perpetual failure: Its this kind of response to utter and complete vacuous nature of the modern Democratic party that makes political solutions to the problems our planet faces impossible to solve through political processes.

    We're past the point where we can continue to blame Democrats for being failures. Its time to start focusing on the people willing to excuse and make excuses for their failures, since they are the barrier to making a sufficiently meaningful change to the Democratic party; this is necessary such that we can carve a political path forwards to creating meaningful positive change in the world.

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  • [+] -6 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    So, you think the justice system should be set up more like how Donald Trump uses it? Just point at your enemy and throw them in jail? Is that how you expect to get "meaningful change"? By simply ignoring the law, and doing whatever the crowd "feels" is justice?

    If we're going to fix anything in this country, we need to follow the law...not find new ways to get around it. And that applies to everyone. Every single person that aided and abetted Trump and his administration, should be prosecuted. But not by some lunch mob mentality. It should be done right. With evidence and due process. If it isn't, then your entire idea of "justice" isn't legitimate.

    That's not "apologetics". You guys have lost your credibility, making arguments like these. This is no better than the so-called "logic" that drives MAGA. They think the system is broken, so fuck the law...just do whatever it takes to "fix" things. And anyone who says they shouldn't, is part of the problem.

    Does that sound familiar? It should. And it should also give you pause.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    Does that sound familiar?

    Oh, you do sound familiar.

    You sound like some of the most resounding failures of the Democratic party which have consistently and unrelentingly ceded both the conversation and the ground on which we fight to fascism. You sound like the "we know better" corporate Democrat who refuses to fight.

    You also "sound" like someone making an intentional and bad faith strawman as their side has entirely lost their grip on the conversation.

    You guys have lost your credibility, making arguments like these.

    This "sounds" like one of those accusations which is actually a confession. The liberal/ neo-liberal contingent of the Democratic party, and of parties globally is who has lost credibility by handing the entire government to fascism, and so they want to threaten the people, who for the past 25 years, have been apologetically saying speaking about the consequences of groups like the Democratic parties acquiescence into fascism.

    Liberals and Neoliberals sacrificed their credibility on the altar of insisting that Biden run again. The sacrificed their credibility for the "norms" that the Biden administration "must follow" for us to have "political normalcy" post January 6th 2021.

    AND YOU in bad faith, interpret that as an advocator for' crime, or god knows what-else hand-wringing you are implying.

    The fact is that liberal and neoliberal apologists sleepwalked us into fascism and then blamed the ref when they chose not to act to purge it entirely from our system from 2021-2025. At this point its no longer about the politicians, but their defenders in online media, social media, and traditional media. Those apologists are the ones responsible for where we are, and need to be purged on sight.

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  • [–] -5 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    So, let me see if I can sum your argument up...you think that only "liberals / neoliberals" believe in laws, due process and evidence based justice?

    Is it your opinion that you can only fight fascism through violence? Because if that's true, then you are walking all of us into their trap, like a sheep to slaughter.

    Good sheep. You're giving them exactly what they want. Are you at least getting paid to pave the way for them, or are you working for them, for free?

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    I mean I've already given you far more grace than you deserve. You are the apologist who paved the road for fascism.

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  • [–] -4 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Sorry, man. It's the fascists that justify abandoning the rule of law. You don't fight something by becoming it.

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago* (1 child)

    You aren't a person anyone should listen to when it comes to ideas for how to fight fascism, when you are the one laying down the red carpet for it.

    And thankfully, no one is. Your side lost all credibility from 2008 onwards.

    No one should listen to you.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    Oh, ok. And how your "fight against fascism" going?

    Why should anyone listen to you on this topic, when all you're advocating for, is to either do nothing at all (which is what you're doing now), or to get a lot of people killed (which seems to be what you want).

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

    Democrats followed your advice from 2008-2024

    It gave us Trump.

    You no longer have a place here.

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  • [–] 1 point 9 months ago

    No. Democrats not listening to their constituents is what got us here. People not showing up to vote because they assumed their vote didn't matter, is what got us here. We outnumber them by millions. If every one of those people had shown up to vote, Trump would be in prison right now, without a single drop of blood shed.

    But, if you think violence is the only solution to all this...then you are no different than any of Trump's thugs. Because that's their solution to everything.

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  • [–] 6 points 9 months ago (1 child)

    It really wasnt though. Garland was chosen for a reason. They had more than enough evidence that he caused an insurrection. They absolutely could have landed him in prison had they actually wanted to.

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  • [–] -1 points 9 months ago

    They had more than enough evidence after they concluded a long and detailed investigation, as well as several other, interconnected lawsuits. It doesn't matter how obvious it "looks" to everyone on the outside...if you want it to stick in court, there needs to be no doubt. That means hard evidence. No theories. No speculation. No assumptions. They needed documented receipts.

    When it comes to incitement, it is extremely hard to prove intent. Every one of the speeches given that day, before that mob descended on the Capitol building, was very carefully worded to allow for enough deniability, that none of those people could be held responsible in court.

    Which meant they had to get proof that Trump knew about, and was directly involved in, the fake electors scam they tried to pull. First they went after the fake electors themselves. Those poor idiots were more than happy to point the finger at Kenneth Chesebro, who orchestrated their participation. After that, they had enough evidence to convict Chesebro of carrying out the plan...but they still needed him to flip on Trump in order to prove that Trump himself, was an active part of it.

    Too many people who work for Trump seem perfectly willing to take the fall for him, despite the fact that he has a long track record of throwing them under the bus as soon as they get caught following his orders. And it never actually came out whether or not Chesebro was actually going to testify against Trump, but given the fact that he was only sentenced to probation, I strongly suspect he cut a deal.

    The problem with all this, is the fact that it takes time for all these other cases to go through the courts, before they had a clear lock on Trump himself. Even if they could have started the process sooner...which isn't necessarily the case...it still would have taken years to bring Trump in front of a judge for his part in all of it.

    And they nearly did. If it wasn't for the Supreme Court forcing Jack Smith to have to re-file the charges at the last minute, he would have been on trial in the summer of 2024...right in the middle of his campaign.

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  • [–] 5 points 9 months ago

    When the results clearly show incompetence, don't fall for the administration's mouthpieces that it was actually "integrity and thoroughness".

    Democrats use adherence to protocol to shield them from doing what they don't want to do, and their primary motivation has always been shielding powerful people from consequences.

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