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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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[–] 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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