#ag merrick garland

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[macwantspeace]

Everybody was kung fu fighting! "your fake eyelashes are in the way of you reading" "your bad built butch body" "girl. baby girl. don't even go there." Jamie Raskin laughing but then putting his serious face back on. The purpose of the meeting [I pause to collect my thoughts] was to impeach the Attorney General for bad behaviour.

[gordoncstewart]

The Benefit of the Doubt

The Benefit of the Doubt

Dismay and a wider view Stepping back from my dismay that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has not yet indicted Donald Trump brings into view the wider context that suggests good reason to give AG Merrick Garland and the DOJ the benefit of the doubt. In the executive branch of federal government, the Department of Justice is responsible for protecting and enforcing “the rule of law” but the DOJ…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

ProPublica:

In the wake of President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, his opponents and most major media organizations have pointed out that he has done few interviews that give the public an opportunity to hear him speak without a script or teleprompters.

So much has been made of this limited access that the impressions from Special Counsel Robert K. Hur about his five hours of interviews with the president on Oct. 8 and 9 drove months of coverage. The prosecutor said Biden had “diminished faculties in advancing age” and called him a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden angrily dismissed these assertions, which Vice President Kamala Harris called “politically motivated.” House Republicans on Monday sued Attorney General Merrick B. Garland for audio recordings of the interview as the White House asserts executive privilege to deny their release. ProPublica obtained a rare interview with Biden on Sept. 29, nine days before the Hur interviews began. We released the video, which was assembled from footage shot by five cameras, on Oct. 1. We edited out less than a minute of crosstalk and exchanges with the camera people, as is customary in such interviews.

Conducting the interview was veteran journalist and former CNN White House correspondent John Harwood, who requested it and then worked with ProPublica to film and produce it.

ProPublica recently released the full, unedited interview by John Harwood with Joe Biden that was conducted on September 29th, 2023.

Unedited interview with ProPublica, 09.29.2023:

[simply-ivanka]

DEMOCRATS WILL LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING AND ALTER ANY STATEMENT OR DOCUMENT TO SUIT THEIR NEED. NO MATTER THE COST.

Department of Justice released its investigation into Joe Biden's mishandling of classified documents, delivering a damning assessment of his limited memory.

But the president, 81, has informed his aides and advisers that Garland didn't do enough to rein in the report written by Special Counsel Robert Hur.

Democrat insiders have also claimed more time working on Biden's makeup could help ease concerns about his age.

[realtalkingpoints]

John Solomon broke this story last night on Hannity and left us all with our jaws on the floor...

From the piece:

In a letter Wednesday to Republicans and Democrats overseeing multiple oversight committees in Congress, Lytle wrote: "The protected disclosures: (l) contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee, (2) involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case, and (3) detail examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected."

Also from the piece:

Specifically, the agent has provided evidence that at least two Biden DOJ political appointees in U.S. attorneys' offices have declined to seek a tax indictment against Hunter Biden despite career investigators' recommendations to do so and the blessing of career prosecutors in the DOJ tax division.

He also alleges that Weiss told agents on the case that the Delaware U.S. Attorney asked to be named a special counsel to have more independent authority in the probe but was turned down, according to interviews.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[centrally-unplanned]

Who are the judges that the next Dem president should appoint to the Supreme Court, now that Merrick Garland and Sri Srinavasan are aging out?

I do not know! I am not a big legal researcher, I only approach it as a policy person - I would be very interested in other people's answers around this actually, if the followers have some.

Maybe related but I do think its silly that this is a mystery at all - right now we "feign meritocracy" and, when a justice croaks, do this like ~survey of the land~ to see who is accomplished at that moment, worthy. Its silly and prevents the democrats from committing to a coherent strategy. They should instead have a solidified docket, like a minister list in parliamentary systems, where we know who is up next and they have been vetted for understanding the political strategy and are committed to fighting the battles necessary. This is something people are loathe to do because it would "politicize the court" but that's silly, the court is a completely political organ - you can't oversweeten sugar. So hopefully in the future we won't have to ask this question ^^

[slipping-into-madness]

[bighermie]

"This is the Definition of Corruption" — AG Merrick Garland is Now Calling GOP Lawmakers, Coercing Them Not to Vote for 'Inherent Contempt' | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft

[mariacallous]

A Trump-appointed prosecutor dropped an unfalsifiable partisan bomb on President Joe Biden Thursday, playing into a years-long right-wing media campaign — and U.S. political journalists decided to treat it as a valid and impartial charge.

Biden, who has a 40-year record of public service in the U.S. Senate, as vice president, and in the Oval Office, is a self-described “gaffe machine” with a well-documented stutter. He is also, at 81, the oldest president in U.S. history.

The right has dedicated substantial time and resources since Biden launched his 2020 presidential campaign to attributing his verbal miscues to his age. Republican political operatives surface out-of-context snippets of Biden’s misstatements and try to blow them up into national stories, and it is rarely-disputed canon in the right-wing media that the president is a mentally failing dementia patient. 

This argument blew up in their faces when Biden performed so well in a debate against then-President Donald Trump that the GOP resorted to accusing him of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and again in 2023, when his canny dealings with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy led McCarthy to describe him as “very smart” and Republicans to question how they’d been outmaneuvered by someone purportedly in mental decline. But undeterred by reality, the right has maintained the drumbeat over Biden’s mental status, driving up public concern over the president’s age.

Enter Robert Hur. Attorney General Merrick Garland presumably selected him as a special counsel to investigate Biden’s possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records because he thought he could quell potential complaints of political bias by putting in charge a former clerk to right-wing judges whom Trump appointed as a U.S. attorney with every incentive to do maximum political damage to the Democratic president. This is a regular pattern — Republican and Democratic administrations each appoint Republicans to investigate both Republicans and Democrats, though that never seems to halt the complaints from the right about the handling of those cases.

On Thursday, after a year-long investigation, Hur issued a 345-page report in which he concluded that “​​no criminal charges are warranted in this matter” and that “the evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” But rather than stop there, he also levied an incendiary and gratuitous attack on Biden’s mental status, claiming that, “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur cited specific mental lapses he’d observed during their five hours of interviews — conducted at a time when Biden was responding to the international crisis caused by the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel — including that his “memory appeared hazy” when discussing the intricacies of 15-year-old White House policy debates.

Hur’s argument that lawyers for the sitting president of the United States would argue in court that he shouldn’t be convicted of a crime because he is a senile old man is facially absurd. Indeed, Biden forcefully pushed back on the critique during a White House appearance Thursday night.

The special counsel’s actions drew sharp criticism from the legal community. Biden’s lawyers blasted claims about Biden’s memory in a draft report, saying, “We do not believe that the report's treatment of President Biden's memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events.” On MSNBC, former FBI counsel Andrew Weissmann called the claims “wholly inappropriate,” “gratuitous,” and “exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is putting your thumb on the scale that could have political repercussions.” Neal Katyal, the former acting U.S. solicitor general, likewise said that based on his tours in the Justice Department, Hur’s statements were “totally gratuitous” and a “too-clever-move-by-half by the special counsel to try and take some swipes at a sitting president.” And Ty Cobb, a former Trump lawyer, said on CNN that he had served on an independent counsel probe that declined to prosecute someone due to “health issues, but we didn’t tell the world that,” suggesting that such statements by Hur were inappropriate.

But by including those inappropriate and gratuitous statements, Hur put an official seal on a partisan attack. 

The right jumped on Hur’s claims, with Republican politicians and right-wing commentators falsely claiming that the special counsel had found that Biden “is not competent to stand trial” and “has dementia.” Some called for the Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and remove him from office.

The mainstream political press, meanwhile, turned Hur’s insinuations about Biden’s mental health — and not his declination to prosecute — into the report’s big takeaway. Here’s a sampling of top headlines from major newspapers, political tipsheets, and digital outlets on Thursday and Friday.

New York Times: “Eight Words and a Verbal Slip Put Biden’s Age Back at the Center of 2024” Axios: “1 big thing: Report questions Biden’s memory” Semafor Flagship: “DoJ report questions Biden’s memory” Washington Post: “Special counsel report paints scathing picture of Biden’s memory” Wall Street Journal: “Biden’s Age Back in Spotlight After Special Counsel Report, Verbal Flubs” CNN: “Biden tries to lay to rest age concerns, but may have exacerbated them” ABC News: “Special counsel blows open debate over Biden age and memory” CBS News: “Biden disputes special counsel findings, insists his memory is fine” Politico: “Age isn’t just a number. It’s a profound and growing problem for Biden.

Stories about Biden’s mental state are clearly catnip for political journalists. They can demonstrate how “fair” they are by providing negative coverage of Biden to balance their treatment of his likely opponent Donald Trump, who is an unhinged authoritarian facing scores of federal and state criminal charges, including for attempting to subvert the 2020 presidential election. And they don’t need to bone up on policy nuances separating the candidates — “is the president addled” is an easy venue for hot takes.

The storyline is particularly toxic because no matter how many times it is repudiated by Biden’s public actions or the statements of people who have spoken to him privately, it cannot be falsified. The White House physician can release health summaries calling him “fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” Democrats who have recently spoken to the president, like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), and reporters who have recently interviewed him, like John Harwood, can attest to his mental acuity at the time of his special counsel interview. But Biden is still Biden, so he’s going to keep making gaffes, as he did Thursday night when he referred to Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as “the president of Mexico,” leading journalists to downplay his newsmaking statements about the Israel-Hamas war and fixate instead on what the statement says about his mental health. 

The choice for reporters is how they respond to such misstatements. On NPR, Mara Liasson said that the White House is pushing back by pointing out that Biden’s foes, like Fox’s Sean Hannity and Trump, have had similar mix-ups.

“But the difference is that one of these missteps, one of these guys who forgets things, Biden, has become a viral meme, and it's become a big problem for him,” she said. “Trump's misstatements, for some reason, have not risen to that level.”

It’s true that Trump’s own verbal missteps have not coalesced into an overarching narrative about his mental fitness for office. But the reason why is obvious: Political journalists decided to treat Biden’s missteps as a big problem, and Trump’s as a small one. They’re setting the agenda, following the lead of the Republican Party, the right-wing media, and now, Hur.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

In two interviews released this week, Donald Trump made it clear that he will only accept the results of the 2024 election if he wins. And even more alarming, Trump—as he did in 2020 —is beginning the process of radicalizing his supporters to commit another Jan 6 type attack if he loses. Before we get into Trump’s comments, please understand that none of this should come as a surprise. After all, Trump attempted a coup and the incited the deadly Jan 6 attack on our Capitol yet he walks free almost three and a half years later.  When a corrupt person like Trump is not swiftly held accountable for his crimes, he will not change his conduct. In fact, he will be emboldened to engage in that same conduct—if not worse.

That is why for years I was slamming Attorney General Merrick Garland in both articles and on cable news for his failure to promptly charge Trump with crimes. At the very least, Garland should have appointed a Special Counsel to investigate Trump for Jan 6 related crimes as soon as he was sworn in as AG in March 2021.  But instead—as we know from reporting—Garland slow walked the investigation into Trump. Consequently, Trump is the 2024 GOP presidential nominee and if he wins in November, he will escape accountability for his federal crimes.

That bring us to Trump’s recent interviews where he is copying his 2020 playbook to both delegitimize the election results if he loses and prepare his supporters for violence on his behalf. On Wednesday, in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel while in Wisconsin for a rally, Trump was asked if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. As the Journal Sentinel noted, Trump “did not commit to accepting the results of the 2024 election.” Rather, he stated, “If everything's honest, I'll gladly accept the results.”  But Trump then added ominously, “If it's not, you have to fight for the right of the country." Trump saying his supporters have to “fight” if he loses instantly conjures up what he said after the 2020 election to radicalize his supporters to ultimately wage the Jan 6 terrorist attack. In fact, at the rally on Jan 6 before the attack, the crowd’s war cry was, “Fight for Trump!” And Trump bellowed the word “fight” or “fighting” to that riled up MAGA crowd 20 times before they waged the actual attack.

Trump made these same points in his series of Time interviews released this week.  When asked about the potential of political violence, Trump should have made it clear given Jan 6, he rejects it and calls on his supporters to do the same. In fact, he should have mimicked the words of President Biden in 2022 on this very issue: “I want to say this plain and simple: There is no place for political violence in America.  Period.  None.  Ever.” Trump didn’t. Instead, when Trump was first asked by the reporter: “Are you worried about political violence in connection with this November's election?” Trump responded, “I think we're gonna have a big victory. And I think there will be no violence.”

The reporter then pressed Trump in a follow up interview on the point: “On our last conversation you said you weren't worried about political violence in connection with the November election. You said, “I think we're going to win and there won't be violence.” What if you don't win, sir?” To that Trump said, “I do think we're gonna win. We're way ahead. I don't think they'll be able to do the things that they did the last time, which were horrible.”  But alarmingly he then added, “And if we don't win, you know, it depends. It always depends on the fairness of an election.”

[...] If there had not been a Jan 6 attack, we could dismiss Trump’s words as being nothing more than overheated campaign rhetoric. But we can’t.  As the  Jan 6 House committee’s final report put it: “The central cause of January 6th was one man, former President Donald Trump, whom many others followed. None of the events of January 6th would have happened without him.” 

In recent interviews with both Time and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Donald Trump ominously hinted at a repeat of what happened during 2020 elections aftermath if he doesn't win: more election denial and violence incitement.