Lawrence: 'Am I the only one untroubled by the WaPo report today?'

[bigtree]

...Lawrence to Rachel at the end of her show tonight:

'Am I the only one untroubled by the WaPo report today, about how long it took for the Justice Dept to get where it is now? It was slow, and I think they'd argue, deliberate. And a year of delay at the Justice Dept.... when did that become a new thing? I'm just... you know.'

Rachel:

If you're shocked at the point that Merrick Garland is a cautious man, 'Good Morning! How was your rest?'

I'm happy to know it, but the fact that there was a lot of yada yada inside the department trying to figure out what to do isn't shocking.


actual exchange...film at eleven.

[Skittles]

1. yes, hopefully he is

INDEED

[bigtree]

6. spoiler alert

...unless you're talking pundits and clickbait reporters, the real story people are interested in is still the Trump indictment and the others pending.

The article is navel-gazing revisionism designed to distract from all that is justice being done.

[Joinfortmill]

2. Amen, Lawrence

[Frasier Balzov]

3. That caution allowed Trump to declare his candidacy.

In other words, the caution itself made prosecution political.

Clumsy, foolish blunder.

[bigtree]

5. how is that?

...Trump last announced days after he was elected.

Nothing DOJ did made Trump announce. He did it to try and make DOJ blink about investigating and charging, believing Garland would be spooked by the election.

Turns out he was really, really wrong about that. Garland's SC appointment made that announcement meaningless to whether he'd be charged. No conflict, no hesitation to move forward with charges.

[edisdead]

9. Makes zero sense.

He could have declared whether or not there was an investigation.

[inthewind21]

13. Please do

explain how anything would have NOT "allowed him to declare his candidacy"

[Frasier Balzov]

14. Picture the difference if he had declared AFTER he was charged.

Would it look like anything except Trump trying to squirm out from under his legal jeopardy?

Because Garland vacillated, Trump beat Justice to the punch.

Timing was everything in how the situation would appear and taste.

Outplayed. A disappointment, and now an added burden.

[stopdiggin]

4. I am shocked .. shocked .. !

(oh, yeah - and distraught, disheartened, disturbed, disenchanted - and just generally turned inside out .. )

------ -------

[sinkingfeeling]

7. I read the whole article in the WP and don't understand what the outrage is about.

[Kaleva]

12. Me either.

[Tommy Carcetti]

8. Agreed. Water under the bridge at this point.

DOJ had some cold feet at the beginning, which sucks.

In the end though, Garland went full throttle into both the documents and January 6th case, appointed Jack Smith, got Trump indicted on the documents case and will likely have Trump indicted on at least some charges relating to January 6th as well.

Again, the initial reluctance sucked, but why it's a big deal now, with Trump just having been indicted and still facing the specter of more charges, I don't know.

[betsuni]

10. Agree with Lawrence.

[Kaleva]

11. I'm not bothered by the report.

[W_HAMILTON]

15. It seems as though he was untroubled because he completely misunderstood the article.

There is a difference in being slow and deliberate vs. trying to avoid the issue all together.

It sounds as though Garland's DOJ fell into the latter category until various factors came together in such a way that he had little choice but to pursue finally pursue an investigation.

That is a failure of justice. Once again, in trying to avoid being """political,""" Garland appears to have made some decisions (and non-decisions) that very much steeped in politics and, to make matters worse, in doing so, he strayed away from what should be his guiding light, which is simply do what's right and treat everyone equally under the law.

[bigtree]

17. that's really not supported by anything but this gossip

...it's almost impossible to believe they went from indifference to full blown targeting with nothing occurring in between.

Just because there wasn't something that could be termed an official probe into Trump doesn't mean DOJ took abandoned the notion he was involved in crimes. It means there were differences among prosecutors about what they believed was enough to move forward, and it didn't flesh out in a way that achieved consensus to target Trump until later.

Still water can hide a deliberately progressing current underneath.

[GoodRaisin]

16. I'm with Lawrence.

[yawn]