Sometimes no news is good news.

[Qutzupalotl]

@robreiner: It has been 17 days since Steve Bannon openly broke the law when he was held in Contempt of Congress for defying a duly authorized subpoena. And Merrick Garland has done nothing. No Rule of Law. No Democracy.

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@JoyceWhiteVance: I don’t have any knowledge about what’s going on inside of DOJ, but it does take some time to issue & return grand jury subpoenas to get all the evidence you need in admissible form. Discovery needs to be prepared for turnover to the defendant. These aren’t insignificant tasks.

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@BarbMcQuade: The longer DOJ spends reviewing Bannon subpoena matter, the more likely it is they will charge. As @JoyceWhiteVance points out, it takes time to get your ducks in a row to file an indictment, which means producing discovery, anticipating motions, and preparing for a speedy trial.

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@k9luna: It just looks like NOTHING is being done inside DOJ.

@JoyceWhiteVance: This is how it looks when prosecutors are working according to the rules. It might be that we should update how the process works but that would likely require action from Congress & I’d argue change should be based on typical cases, not exceptional ones FWIW.

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@KAFearless: Joyce, what exactly is the process? Can't DOJ simply state that a GJ has been convened to address the criminal referral? Isn't that something the American people should be made of aware of?

@JoyceWhiteVance: Actually no. You can be prosecuted for disclosing federal grand jury proceedings.

[brooklynite]

1. But how can we complete about Garland on this basis?

[cilla4progress]

2. Then there is this from Laurence Tribe

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[Ocelot II]

9. I have all the respect in the world for Tribe as a legal scholar.

But he's only ever been a law professor and a consultant on cases involving major constitutional issues; he's never been a prosecutor, federal or otherwise, and he doesn't do the grunt work of assembling and preparing for a grand jury presentation - the discovery, the witnesses, the often slow processes. He's a theory guy, one of the best, but he's not a practitioner. So I have to go with Vance and McCabe on this.

[lamp_shade]

11. This makes sense. Thanks for the information.

[empedocles]

3. Good OP. We know many on the DU are impatient. However, weighing the

DU crowd v. the above respected authorities - seems that the prudent balance goes to the experienced persons in the OP.

[JanMichael]

4. And sometimes a duck is a duck when it doesn't quack.

Happy Fitzmas.

[PortTack]

5. Love Joyce Alene and Barb McQuade! Thx for posting

[LonePirate]

6. Why is a grand jury indictment needed? If I defy a subpoena, a warrant is issued the next day.

This is nothing more than an instance of the rich and powerful doing what they want, skirting the law and getting away with it.

[Justice matters.]

8. Although both a Congressional Committee's subpoena and a Court subpoena are legal documents

A Court subpoena is enforced through warrants being issued, while a Congressional Committee Contempt-vote is enforced through a full House of Representative (majority vote) and referred to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, who then "SHALL" convene a Grand Jury after collecting the evidence (majority vote).

There is no required time lapse between the referral to the US Attorney for DC and the indictment (if the GJ returns one on a majority vote basis), and there is no required public announcement of the proceedings (for example, in case the GJ vote result would not return an indictment).

[luv2fly]

7. Yep, don't want to swing and miss

And all the "Bannon been arrested yet?" posts are ridiculous. If and when it happens , you'll read about it here, fifty times in fact.

[lamp_shade]

10. I respect Garland's ability to ignore the whiners... be they politicians, opinion writers or

a handful of DU posters. He knows what he's doing. Of that I'm confident.