Does Merrick Garland

[cilla4progress]

have a long game?

Link to tweet

?s=19

[Baitball Blogger]

1. At some point, someone needs to get me up to speed.

What did Merrick Garland do today?

[cilla4progress]

3. Check out some of the OPs.

It's all there.

[Hoyt]

4. Garland failed to take down trump and everyone around him, including Putin.

[Generic Brad]

5. He recovered money from the pipeline hackers

So apparently that is interpreted that he is protecting Trump and burying 1/6 investigations. You can’t make this shit up.

[JohnSJ]

6. That isn't it. He is defending trump against the Carroll rape charge, that is what is upsetting

[StarfishSaver]

11. He's not defending Trump

DOJ filed a brief arguing that it should continue to represent Trump in the case.

[JohnSJ]

12. It amounts to the same thing. Last year a federal judge ruled that the DOJ could not take over

Trump's defense, despite that the litigation over the matter is ongoing.

This happened before trump was president, so why the DOJ feels an obligation to represent trump is going to get a lot of push back, and in my view it will be derserved

[StarfishSaver]

13. Actually, it DOESN'T amount to the same thing.

[cilla4progress]

19. Please

proceed?

[lagomorph777]

40. Wasn't it illegal in the first place to act as his private attorney?

I really don't get why this is OK.

[StarfishSaver]

42. They're not acting as his private attorney

Something different.

Under the Westfall Act, when a government official is sued Ilin their private capacity for acts they committed when in office as part of their job, the federal government steps in and becomes the defendant in their place.

The rub is that while in some cases, it is very easy to determine whether someone was acting in there official or personal capacity almost immediately, in others, it can't be determined until the case proceeds to discovery and more evidence goes in the record for a judge to use to decide that issue.

The case of a president is one of the more difficult ones because their jobs are not as easily delineated between personal and official. Almost everything they do can have official implications. In this case presidents make statements all the time about a wide variety of things and the line between personal and official is very blurred. A court will probably have to decide whether Trump's statements about Carroll were purely personal or if they arose out of any official interest or duty. Of course most of us are sure they didn't, but our opinions is not a legal determination - that still has to be ruled on by a judge. In the meantime the Justice Department is seeking to step in to protect the government's interest in case the judge rules that this was official activity.

It's pretty complicated and confusing and even lawyers aren't agreeing on how DOJ should handle it. But that doesn't mean that Merrick Garland or DOJ are doing the wrong thing or should be attacked for choosing the option that they did. It's a perfectly reasonable and justifiable one.

[lagomorph777]

43. I hope they go through an extensive discovery process.

Maybe that's the plan?

[StarfishSaver]

44. It may be

But there are surely a lot of reasons they are doing this.

But the bottom line is I think this argument won't be accepted by the court, so the case will probably proceed with Trump as the named party anyway with lots of discovery He surely doesn't want.

[walkingman]

49. Which should have never happened. Garland need to take an energy drink.

He certainly doesn't seem to be cleaning up the DOJ.

[ChrisF1961]

25. No he's not defending Trump

The DOJ is defending a President in a civil lawsuit for something said as President. If they hadn’t done this it would have opened Biden up to civil lawsuits launched by the right wing.

[JohnSJ]

28. This has already been done with Paula Jones. The DOJ is going against what Biden campaigned

on, and what a federal judge has already ruled on

It also says to me that the DOJ does not believe trump is liable for January 6th, and nothing wrong with the “big lie”

I believe this will cause division among Democrats, and only hope it doesn’t hurt us in 2022

[ChrisF1961]

30. Biden doesn't control the DOJ

nor should he. Garland should do what he thinks is right without being beholden to anything Biden campaigned.

As far as what it also says, total BS with no grounding in any reality.

[JohnSJ]

31. I agree, this is on Garland not Biden. However, the issue of what a sitting president is liable on

is very much what this is about, and trump’s actions when he was president are very much what the DOJ is arguing about

[ChrisF1961]

32. Yes and if the DOJ didn't defend a President

from civil lawsuits, it would open Biden up to harassment. They are defending a principle, not Trump.

[JohnSJ]

34. Effectively he is defending trump by proxy, and the last four years it was an example of a unitary

President.

It is also a matter of time when this extends to if a president is liable to criminal acts

[ChrisF1961]

37. No it isn't

It is a single principle, which protects Biden. Stop trying to spin it into something that it isn't.

[StarfishSaver]

45. This wasn't done with the Paula Jones case

That was an entirely different situation. She accused him of behavior conducted before he became president - there was no implication of the Westfall Act in any of it, so there was no involvement by DOJ.

And DOJ is doing exactly what Biden campaigned on - he said he would not get involved in or influence DOJ, but would let them make their own decisions without interference from him. That's what he's doing. The fact that he expressed his opinion about the case does not mean they're going against what he campaigned on - in fact his justice department taking an action that seems to be in conflict with his personal opinion about a case is further proof that he's living up to his campaign promise.

[JohnSJ]

46. Ok, But he was charged and fined for perjury in regard to Monica Lewensky, which occurred when he

was president. Is that a valid example?

[StarfishSaver]

47. No, that's not a relevant or correct example, either

He was never charged with perjury, which is a crime. He was impeached on that basis, but that's completely different. And he was later fined by the Arkansas Supreme Court, which was an administrative matter related to his law license.

But even if he had been charged with a crime - which he wasn't - that would have been a criminal matter unrelated to the Federal Tort Claims Act or Westfall Act, which are the operative authorities in this case.

[JohnSJ]

48. Ok, thanks for explaining

[Sympthsical]

33. I know. I was offline since noon yesterday.

Woke up at 4 AM to go to gym. Reading along as I walk there, and I'm like, "I have totally missed something somewhere."

[Hoyt]

2. Seems a bit early to get on Biden or Garland, Ms. Siskind.

[marble falls]

8. Gotta say, it seems a bit early to me also. Not even a full six months into a four year term ...

Let alone, we have two more elections to get us the kind of Congress we need to have to really begin serious work to fix the 45th's four years.

[Sneederbunk]

7. Long game? Does Garland have game?

[Budi]

9. Amy Siskind from Wall Street?

Wall Street!!
😳
Man, I hope she never gave a SPEECH!

[StarfishSaver]

10. No. He's just a short-sighted idiot who doesn't know what he's doing

and the Attorney General and former chief judge of the DC Circuit definitely doesn't know nearly as much about the law or his job as non-lawyer observers on Twitter and DU.

Too bad Biden didn't know any better than to appoint this guy to be the chief law enforcement officer in the land.

[JohnSJ]

14. This is from the ny times

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142753536

[StarfishSaver]

15. Interesting

It's nice to see that Biden, as promised, is allowing the Justice Department to act independently, even when it is inconsistent with something he said in a debate.

[JohnSJ]

17. I agree

[GoCubsGo]

27. Yes, and like his stupid boss, they were supposed to fix everything in 4 months.

It shouldn't matter that they're dealing with the most tangled, fucked-up situation since the Great Depression. Amy and her ilk want their Oompa Loompas NOW!

[Fiendish Thingy]

16. It's AG Garland's fault that Joe F*cking Manchin is obstructing Biden's agenda? Nt

[JohnSJ]

18. Sarcasm, right?

[speaknow]

20. The problem maybe everyone is afraid

of Orange Head! Well except Nancy.

[speaknow]

21. Thinking more about that, I don't think or

my hunch is Garland didn't do his home work.
He didn't purge the staff that is loyal to Barr.
Because that rape case is really a civil case.

[StarfishSaver]

22. It's not a rape case

It's a civil lawsuit for defamation.

[canetoad]

23. And it's going to be in the news

For some time to come.

To defend against defamation, he has to essentially defend himself against rape. Could be juicy.

[ChrisF1961]

24. This is the instant gratification mentality of

idiots who don’t know how things really work.

[rownesheck]

26. Garland could be hoping DOJ is allowed

to defend the orange dipshit. That way they can do a shitty job of it and Tubby McWetpants will be convicted and sent to prison. Hell, that's what I would push for if I was AG.

[JohnSJ]

29. No. They will defend the issue to the best of their ability that a president is above any Civil

indictment, and it won’t be too hard to see this extending to criminal charges also

What trump has effectively reign has effectively done is say a sitting president is above the law, and that is what is at stake

[RegularJam]

36. Why are you touting corruption as if it were a good thing? nt

[RegularJam]

35. His long game is justice and competence.

The outrage at democrats is laughable.

[cilla4progress]

38. Laurence Tribe

Link to tweet

?s=19

Still laughing?

[MineralMan]

41. That's the only game available, really.

So, of course he does. He's not going to show his hand, either. Why would he?

We'll find out what he's been up to in due time. Some Democrats need to learn patience. Truly.