The Big Picture - 
By Glynn Wilson - 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – We have exclusive, breaking news to report on the Eve of Christmas Eve.

Inside sources with Santa’s elves tasked with reading letters to St. Nick and compiling the results for the jolly old man at the North Pole say the number one wish from politically active people in the United States is to see Donald Trump behind bars.

Of course these letters, emails, Twitter and Facebook posts are flooding in mostly from Democrats, although there are quite a few from political independents and even pro-business Republicans with a college education.

In the interest of reporting both sides, coming in a close second, many Republicans want the white-bearded man dressed all in red fur with the broad face and little round belly, that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly, to urge Jesus to come back to Earth now to re-install Trump as president.

Of course Santa will not be able to fulfill either one of these wishes, which means there will be lots of disappointed citizens on Christmas morning in the U.S.

To keep Santa’s public approval rating up, the little old driver so lively and quick, can just blame it on The Grinch, and claim he stole Christmas.

Poor President Joe Biden can’t seem to make a majority of Americans happy either. His job approval rating is holding steady at just 43 percent.

He’s still suffering from the aftermath of pulling the military out of Afghanistan, a subject that seems to consume much of the attention on PBS and NPR, still. They just can’t stop talking about it, which actually has their ratings falling like much of the news media in America.

Of course a majority of the people still don’t trust the mainstream media anyway. Only 36 percent of people in the U.S. have a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in mass media, according to Gallup.

The continuing COVID pandemic, the bottlenecks in the product supply chain and rising prices and inflation are also impacting Biden’s approval rating, as well as his moderate approach to governing, which has progressives seething mad. They are about ready to sink West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin’s houseboat for killing the climate bill before Christmas, a lump of coal if there ever was one. He makes his money from coal in case you haven’t heard.

But all is not lost.

There is something Biden could do to make the wishes of Democrats come true, and educate some Republicans in the process.

I’ve had a number of people inquire privately about why this administration will not actively prosecute Trump by using the full power of the Department of Justice to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Perhaps most people missed it, because you have to read between the headlines in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New American Journal to find the answer. Here, let’s make it explicit for all to see.

Back during the campaign, when Biden was asked about prosecuting Trump, he dodged the question. Even before he decided to pass over Alabama Senator Doug Jones for Attorney General and placate the deep state insiders in Georgetown by appointing Merrick Garland, who President Obama appointed to the Supreme Court but had his nomination blocked by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader at the time, Biden dodged.

He repeated a less quotable position than the one used by Obama when he made it clear he would not sic his Justice Department on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for taking the country to war with Iraq based on false intel, for widespread domestic spying on Americans or for the CIA’s torture of prisoners.

Remember what Obama said? Were you paying attention to the news at the time?

According to The New York Times, Mr. Obama said in an interview that he had “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”

And that was that. The administration policy became look forward, not back.

Many of us in the web mediasphere saw that as a deal Obama made with Bush to keep the Washington establishment off his back and let him be the Jackie Robinson of American presidents.

During his campaign for president, Biden addressed the question of what he would do about investigating Trump if he was elected. Here’s one version of the story from CNBC that pops up high in Google searches.

Joe Biden said that he would not order his administration to investigate Donald Trump if he was elected president in 2020.

“Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. I would let them make their independent judgment,” Biden said during the fifth Democratic debate in Atlanta. “I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated. That’s not the role of the president of the United States.”

Biden said he would go along with “whatever is determined by the attorney general.”

“If that was the judgment, that (Trump) violated the law and he should be in fact criminally prosecuted, then so be it,” Biden said. “But I would not direct it.”

Of course it was the right political answer. But you know and I know that a president can have the attorney general over to the White House Mess for breakfast or lunch and hint at what they are thinking, and over eggs or a burger influence Justice. The Bush administration certainly didn’t hesitate to use the legal system to its political advantage.

There has been a feeling all along since Biden was elected that the directive to Garland at Justice was to leave the investigation up to the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. It has been hinted that such an all encompassing investigation would distract from Biden’s domestic legislative agenda and further divide the country.

Garland has also been asked about it a few times, but always deflects the question, standing by the (sometimes) policy of the Justice Department not to publicly comment on ongoing investigations. (Remember FBI Director James Comey and Hillary’s emails?)

But wait!

There is a new push on this front on the Eve of Christmas Eve that could send the scales of justice tipping in the direction of opening an investigation, and save Biden’s public approval rating to boot.

In Thursday’s New York Times, there is a bipartisan push making the case for why Garland should open an official investigation of Trump in a guest essay co-written by Laurence H. Tribe, a university professor emeritus at Harvard Law School who taught Garland, along with Donald Ayer, a U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration and deputy attorney general in the George H.W. Bush administration, and Dennis Aftergut, a former assistant U.S. attorney.

NYT: Will Donald Trump Get Away With Inciting an Insurrection?

“In his nine months in office, Attorney General Merrick Garland has done a great deal to restore integrity and evenhanded enforcement of the law to an agency that was badly misused for political reasons under his predecessor. But his place in history will be assessed against the challenges that confronted him. And the overriding test that he and the rest of the government face is the threat to our democracy from people bent on destroying it,” they write.

“Mr. Garland’s success depends on ensuring that the rule of law endures. That means dissuading future coup plotters by holding the leaders of the insurrection fully accountable for their attempt to overthrow the government. But he cannot do so without a robust criminal investigation of those at the top, from the people who planned, assisted or funded the attempt to overturn the Electoral College vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob attack on the Capitol.

“To begin with, he might focus on Mark Meadows, Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and even Donald Trump — all of whom were involved, in one way or another, in the events leading up to the attack.

“Almost a year after the insurrection, we have yet to see any clear indicators that such an investigation is underway, raising the alarming possibility that this administration may never bring charges against those ultimately responsible for the attack.

“While the Justice Department has filed charges against more than 700 people who participated in the violence, limiting the investigation to these foot soldiers would be a grave mistake: As Joanne Freeman, a Yale historian, wrote this month about the insurrection, ‘Accountability — the belief that political power holders are responsible for their actions and that blatant violations will be addressed — is the lifeblood of democracy. Without it, there can be no trust in government, and without trust, democratic governments have little power.'”

You can read the rest for yourself. But rest assured, if this DOJ had a team investigating Trump, it would have leaked out by now.

The editorial board of the New American Journal wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion, a conclusion I’ve already written myself a number of times in this space.

“Throughout his public life, Mr. Garland has been a highly principled public servant focused on doing the right thing. But only by holding the leaders of the Jan. 6 insurrection — all of them — to account can he secure the future and teach the next generation that no one is above the law. If he has not done so already, we implore the attorney general to step up to that task.”

As I have said on a number of occasions, the United States Department of Justice cannot have it both ways. As a country, we cannot say “No one is above the law” and in the same breath say “you can’t indict a sitting (or former) president.”

There is more than ample evidence that Trump incited this insurrection.

As the attorneys point out, even if the Atlanta district attorney is able to convict Meadows and Trump for interfering in Georgia’s election, they could still run for office again. Only convicting them for participating in an insurrection would permanently disqualify them from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof….”

I’ve cited this law before, and will cite it again here for the record:

18 U.S. Code § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection

“Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

So come on Santa. Leave a message for this president, and this attorney general, and let’s put Trump behind bars.

It may not happen by this Christmas. Maybe by next Christmas?

And while we’re wishing, what about a white Christmas, with a little dusting of snow in D.C.?

For reference, see A Visit from St. Nicholas

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