By delaying any investigation or prosecution of Trump until almost two years after he became attorney general, Garland hamstrung Jack Smith, the dogged and beleaguered special counsel, leaving little time for the predictable unpredictabilities of two high-stakes prosecutions. Both were as solid as federal cases get, and now neither has any chance of being completed before the election, leaving voters without clear legal conclusions about Trump’s responsibility for the Jan. 6 riot and the highly classified documents he took from the White House.

Archived at https://ghostarchive.org/archive/QGUMD

  • Nougat@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Garland should never have been AG.

    Garland was supposed to be a SCOTUS justice, blocked by McConnell, et al. When he was appointed AG, he exercised great caution to ensure that nothing he did had the appearance of “revenge” or selective prosecution. That behavior is absolutely necessary, but it wouldn’t have been if it wasn’t Garland as AG.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Right?

      Picking him as AG was absolutely baffling to me at the time, and it’s panned out to be perhaps the worst pick in the entirety of the Biden administration. Like, genuinely, the only worse play off the top of my head would have been to just keep Bill Barr around.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      He wasn’t even that. He was literally chosen to call the Republicans bluff when they said that Obama would never nominate someone like him even. Then Obama did.

      It just turns out that it wasn’t a bluff. And the racists never had any intention of ever being sensible or normal. But I think that was pretty much obvious to anyone with a couple of brain cells.

      Garland however, was never a leftist. He wasn’t even ever “progressive”. Let alone a Democrat. He was always a false neutrality, status quo droid. Plus, regardless of who was put in office. Republicans were always going to claim any consequences for their behavior was revenge. Even if it was revenge though. Why should we be concerned. Sometimes revenge and justice are the same thing. And justice shouldn’t be denied. Perhaps Republicans should stop giving people grounds for wanting revenge?