Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

While being as disappointed and fearful with Garland's performance re Trump as you and other objectively rational thinking observers are

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"And this is the absolute fucking bullshit I've been writing about with garland going along with something barr created to protect the pres shitsinpants when nothing like his order ever existed before for any other president. garland should have thrown everything out that barr created and why he is following it just makes me think"
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i'd guess Garland's letting Barr's order stand could be seen as simply his attempt to satisfy the
inspector general's criticisms around the FBI involvement in the 2016 election. Specifically:

The Comey Letter Probably Cost Clinton The Election
So why won’t the media admit as much?
By Nate Silver Published May 3, 2017
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/

And to keep the DOJ as free from controversy as much as he can.

Excerpt:
"If a decision were made to open a criminal investigation into Mr. Trump after he announced his intention to run in the 2024 election, as he continues to hint he might do, the department’s leadership would be required to undertake a formal consultation process, then sign a formal approval .. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/us/politics/barr-2020-investigations.html .. This of the department’s intentions under an internal rule created by former Attorney General William P. Barr and endorsed by Mr. Garland.
P - But in recent days, Mr. Garland has repeatedly asserted his right to investigate or prosecute anybody, including Mr. Trump, provided that is where the evidence leads."

Then this of Garland's i'd guess should only be taken as reinstating the independence of DOJ from political influence:

Excerpt:
'Members of the committee have said they are still considering making a criminal referral to the Justice Department in hopes of increasing the pressure on Mr. Garland to prosecute Mr. Trump.
P - Mr. Garland shrugged off that suggestion.
P - “I think that’s totally up to the committee,” he said in his NBC interview. “We will have the evidence that the committee has presented, and whatever evidence it gives us, I don’t think that the nature of how they style, the manner in which information is provided, is a particular significance from any legal point of view.”"

Your link, the source of those two excerpts ..
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/26/us/politics/trump-jan-6-justice-department.html

As far as the DOJ going after Trump being seen as political of course it would be, but that shouldn't stop Garland from bringing criminal charges against Trump. See

Cassidy Hutchinson’s Testimony Changed Our Minds About Indicting Donald Trump
[...]
DOJ’s Changed Calculus

So far, we have addressed the legal case for holding Trump criminally accountable for the violence of Jan. 6. But for a prosecution to be legitimate, it is not enough that the prosecutor believes that the law and the facts are on their side. The prosecutor must also conclude .. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/criminal_justice/standards/ProsecutionFunctionFourthEdition/#:~:text=(a)%20A%20prosecutor%20should%20seek,in%20the%20interests%20of%20justice. .. that “the decision to charge is in the interests of justice.” At the federal level, this means that a prosecutor should bring charges unless .. https://www.justice.gov/jm/jm-9-27000-principles-federal-prosecution#9-27.220 .. “(1) the prosecution would serve no substantial federal interest; (2) the person is subject to effective prosecution in another jurisdiction; or (3) there exists an adequate non-criminal alternative to prosecution.” The second requirement does not apply in this case because the actions at issue took place in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital and a federal enclave. So the question is whether a prosecution of Trump would serve a substantial federal interest and whether there exist adequate alternatives to prosecution.

We think the answers to these questions are yes and no. Beside the general interest in enforcing federal criminal law, a prosecution of Trump would accomplish three important purposes. First, it would send a clear message that no one, not even the president, is above the law. This, unfortunately, is not a fringe position. From former President Richard Nixon’s statement .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/23/trump-falsely-tells-auditorium-full-teens-constitution-gives-him-right-do-whatever-i-want/ .. that “[w]hen the president does it … that means that it is not illegal,” to Trump’s claim .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/07/23/trump-falsely-tells-auditorium-full-teens-constitution-gives-him-right-do-whatever-i-want/ .. that “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president,” the poisonous idea of an extralegal president has posed an increasing threat to American democracy. A criminal prosecution would go a long way toward countering that threat.

Second, a prosecution would deter future presidents, and their enablers, from engaging in the sort of extreme, anti-democratic conduct that Trump embraced. Of course, deterrence can go too far, and it is a legitimate concern to worry about creating an overly cautious and risk-averse executive. But just because a prosecution would have chilling effects doesn’t mean that all chilling effects are bad. We want future presidents to err well on the side of respecting the democratic process: extra caution is no bad thing.

Finally, and perhaps most controversially, a prosecution could serve criminal law’s goal of incapacitating criminals. We do not take a position on whether prosecution would necessarily mean incarceration, and one of us has previously argued against putting Trump in prison .. https://shugerblogcom.wordpress.com/2018/02/08/justice-without-jail/ . A criminal penalty could be limited to a large fine. It could be used by Congress as the basis for impeachment and Senate disqualification or disqualification by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. However, we also think it is important to recognize some of the benefits of equality before the law. Our legal system should treat ex-presidents who have committed violent felonies the same way it treats other citizens who commit violent felonies. In our society, violent felons tend to serve time in jail, and incitement and insurrection are crimes of violence, in which people were killed and badly injured. After Tuesday, the case for Trump to face equal justice is increasingly strong on a moral and retributive basis as well as on a deterrence basis. Given Trump’s repeated invocations of the “big lie .. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2022/06/09/why-many-republicans-believe-the-big-lie-00036384 ,” there is no reason to think that he has learned any sort of lesson, and he remains popular among his base and continues to be enabled by Republican politicians across the country and in Washington. The ordinary political process seems unable to deal with Trump, so there is no “adequate non-criminal alternative to prosecution.”

We recognize the radical implications of this last point. It’s essentially a call to allow political considerations to enter into what should ordinarily be completely removed from politics: the weighty responsibilities of the federal prosecutor. But when we’re talking about the president of the United States committing not just crimes but attacking the very foundation of democratic government, there’s no way to cleanly separate law from politics. And while indicting a former president who remains the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination will no doubt do immense short-term damage to American political stability and raise some potential separation-of-powers issues .. lawfareblog.com/mueller-reports-weak-statutory-interpretation-analysis" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">https://www.lawfareblog.com/mueller-reports-weak-statutory-interpretation-analysis , the alternative—to allow American democracy to be attacked literally from within and from the very top—is even worse.

Trump, as he so often does, has left the country facing a painful dilemma. Attorney General Merrick Garland has no good options, only bad ones. But the bad options are not all equally bad. While we certainly don’t envy Garland and the difficult decision he has to make, we think that, after Tuesday’s testimony, letting Trump off the hook poses a greater threat to American democracy than does prosecuting him.

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