Special Prosecutor Jack Smith: NAJ screen shot

The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Liz Cheney was right.

Cheney Says Trump Faces ‘Multiple’ Criminal Referrals, and Hints the Justice Department Should Not Wait

Merrick Garland didn’t listen.

Pressure Mounts on Justice Department to Bring Charges Against Trump

Now we are stuck with Trump for two more years, with the Republicans in control of the gavel in the House, and Elon Musk in control at Twitter.

This is not going to be as fun as you might think, unless you are a chaos monkey who eats sensational clickbait for breakfast.

My best advice: Don’t change your Facebook profile pic to Jack Smith just yet. If Robert Mueller couldn’t lock Trump up, why would you think the new special prosecutor Jack Smith will be any different?

This is a punt, baby, punt.

Only no football game is on the line here. This is a death match for American democracy and human life on Earth.

And the buck passes again.

How many times must we take it, this Firefighter Arsonist pouring gas on the chaos prairie fire, pleasing only Putin, who relishes the destruction of American democracy, and the likes of Q-Anon and Majorie Taylor Green?

As you’ve probably heard by now, President Joe Biden’s pick for Attorney General, Merrick Garland, appointed a special prosecutor on Friday to take over two major criminal investigations involving Trump, his role in planning a seditious conspiracy and inciting a violent insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, and smuggling top secret classified documents out of Washington and into his beach house in Florida — where even the house keepers could read them on their breaks for entertainment. You think Putin didn’t get copies?

Imagine if you did that, and leaked them to Wikileaks? You would be hiding in a foreign Embassy like the Iranian man stuck in the airport, indefinitely.

This would not have been necessary if Garland had simply listened to the House Select Committee investigating the worst terrorist attack on America since 9/11, and co-chair Liz Cheney, and unsealed an indictment of Trump before the election, or even right after the election, forestalling any chance Trump had to announce any run for public office.

In waiting, Garland allowed Trump the opening to announce his run for president in 2024, making a criminal prosecution nearly impossible for a Department of Justice that is still trying to convince some people in the country that Justice is NOT a partisan, political affair. Nobody believes him anyway, but these Ivy League Washington insiders seem to have no courage to play any other game but Pretend.

Do you really believe for a second that the Trump and Bush appointees on the United States Supreme Court are ruling in a way that is “not political” or “non-partisan?” Their recent decisions striking down precedent after precedent were dripping with politics and partisanship.

Here’s the truth.

Republicans play hardball, to win at all costs.

Democrats play Wordle, and literally pray to get the right combination of letters with nary a clue.

I don’t care what experience this Jack Smith has, Harvard law and all that, some experience at The Hague, allegedly a registered independent voter. Trump’s side doesn’t care, and he’s up against a Teflon-coated Anti-Christ, who will not cooperate and doesn’t believe in playing fair.

“Such an appointment underscores the department’s commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters,” Garland said at the hastily called press conference to announce the decision. Theoretically, he still retains the final say over whether Trump will be charged with a crime after Smith presents his investigation and recommendations. It took Mueller two years to say he could find no hard evidence of a crime on the part of Trump in collusion with the Russians to steal the 2016 election.

Smith vowed that the investigations would move quickly “to whatever outcome the facts and the law dictate.”

Two more years to find no hard evidence that Trump “intended” to commit a crime when he thought he declassified documents just by thinking it, and didn’t think anyone would show up to attack the Capitol and try to hang Pence and Pelosi because of what he said?

Don’t fool yourself. This case will drag on in the press and media and on Twitter through the 2024 presidential election.

If a rematch of 2020 excites you, have fun. It doesn’t look like fun to me.

Of course officials with the Biden White House denied any involvement in the decision. But there seem to be some insider Democrats in the so-called “deep state” who think Biden would win a rematch with Trump, even though he just hit 80-years-old, his popularity is still well below 50 percent.

Look, I don’t think Trump has any chance of winning reelection — unless the Democrats totally blow it.

But I would feel a lot better if Trump was at least on trial, if not behind bars, and one way or another, barred from running for reelection ever again — just like Liz Cheney said.

“The Justice Department doesn’t have to wait for the committee to make a criminal referral,” Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And there could be more than one criminal referral.”

“I think there’s no question, I mean, a man as dangerous as Donald Trump can absolutely never be anywhere near the Oval Office ever again,” Cheney said.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in the smokeless room around here, where somebody thinks it’s a good idea to keep Trump around loose on the campaign trail for the next two years, and then let him off the hook for no “criminal intent” or “insufficient evidence” of an actual crime. Just in time for him to win reelection in 2024?

This is a dangerous game. Think of the violence he could instigate. The damage to democratic systems from Republicans jumping all over themselves to join his coup for their own selfish purposes.

This must be exactly what Biden is thinking, only he and his advisers must be saying, and thinking, “Trump will hang himself.” What if he doesn’t?

Then the Department of Justice can try to save its reputation for non-partisanship by punting once more, saying they can’t indict a “sitting president,” again, like Mueller?

Legal Double Standard

There is a well established legal principle in the U.S. that applies to poor people. “Ignorance of the law is no defense.” If ignorance were accepted as an excuse, any judge will say, any person charged with a criminal offense could claim ignorance to avoid the consequences. Laws apply to every person within the jurisdiction, whether they are known and understood.

The legal principle that seems to apply to the rich, however, goes like this: “We find insufficient evidence that the defendant acted with full knowledge and intent to commit a crime, therefore no charges will be brought in this case.”

Prove me wrong.

I hope to be wrong. I wish I was wrong. I will eat my words if they actually, ever, indeed finally charge this son-of-a-bitch with crimes. He is the most despicable, corrupt, fascist dictator wannabe, mob boss asshole in the history of the United States, and clearly the most corrupt politician of all time, the worst president ever. He makes George W. Bush look like a choir boy deregulation conservative Christian Republican with a minor pot and drinking habit.

But I have my doubts whether Trump will ever face a day in jail, or more than a day or two in court.

History of Special Prosecutors

Roughly 20 special prosecutors (called independent counsels after 1983) were appointed under the Ethics in Government Act and its reauthorizations during the administrations of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. These include significant investigations into the Iran–Contra affair and the Whitewater controversy, the latter of which ultimately led to the impeachment of Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky scandal. Numerous smaller investigations into cabinet secretaries for relatively minor offenses, such as drug use, were also carried out by independent counsels during this period.

During the period 1992–1994 when the independent counsel provisions were not in force, Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Robert Fiske special counsel to investigate the Whitewater controversy. When the law was reauthorized in 1994, Reno invoked it to order an independent counsel be appointed to investigate Whitewater, and suggested Fiske continue in that role.

Instead, Ken Starr was given the job by the three-judge panel. Starr resigned and was replaced by Robert Ray in 1999 just before the expiration of the independent counsel statute. Ray formally concluded the Whitewater investigation in 2003.

Neither Bill Clinton nor Hillary Clinton were ever prosecuted, after three separate inquiries found insufficient evidence linking them with the criminal conduct of others related to the land deal. Susan McDougal was granted a pardon by President Clinton before he left office.

So that special prosecutor’s investigation lasted a decade.

What was the conclusion of the Iran Contra affair?

In the end, several dozen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted, some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the presidency of George H. W. Bush. Ronald Reagan skated, in the end being diagnosed with Alzheimers.

History

Mueller’s Trump-Russia Investigation

On May 17, 2017, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel to take over the previous FBI investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

The Special Counsel investigation was an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, links between associates of Donald Trump and Russian officials, and possible obstruction of justice by Trump and his associates.

The investigation was conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller from May 2017 to March 2019, about two years. It was also called the Russia investigation, the Mueller probe, and the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation culminated with the Mueller report, which concluded that though the Trump campaign welcomed Russian interference and expected to benefit from it, there was insufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy to charge Trump. The report did not reach a conclusion about possible obstruction of justice of Trump, citing a Justice Department guideline that prohibits the federal indictment of a sitting president.

Here’s what I wrote. I tried to warn Democrats. They didn’t listen. Many said I was wrong and unfriended me. None of them came back and apologized when I was proved right, as usual. I also called that one a “punt.”

Redacted Mueller Report Lets Trump Off the Hook for Conspiracy to Collude With Russia, Leaves a Determination on Obstruction of Justice Up to Congress

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