As President Joseph Robinette Biden nears the completion of his first term, indictments finally arrived for the man who tried everything to prevent him from taking office. Former Pizza Hut spokesman, WWF cameo maker, four-time bankrupt real estate developer and one-term former-President, Donald J. Trump is currently facing criminal charges in three separate cases. His supporters, predictably enough, are crying foul and claiming that he is being set upon by a weaponized government. His detractors, of which I am one of the legion, are wondering what in the world took so long?
After all, he refused to enter his business interests into a blind trust as president, an apparent breach of compliance with the emoluments clause of the Constitution. He used his family’s real estate properties for state events, effectively enriching himself and his businesses by scheduling state affairs in them, brazenly embracing the conflict of interest while pocketing government funds. He spectacularly lost his re-election campaign, after plugging the country’s economy into a toilet from mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic, then realizing the subsequent job losses and economic contraction that came as a result. He lied about his loss, called a rally scheduled on the day of the electoral count to confirm Joe Biden as the winner, riled, roused and dispatched an angry mob to the Capitol to overturn the vote and murder Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his loyal Vice President, Mike Pence. After he did concede, he left the White House, with a Mar-a-Lago bathroom full of boxes stuffed with sensitive documents and government secrets.
This all happened in plain sight of the country’s top prosecutor, Attorney General, Merrick Garland. Garland, as you may recall, was the man snubbed by humanoid turtle, Senator Mitch McConnell to be heard or confirmed for the late Justice Scalia’s seat. He now had a second chance with the Biden administration to show just what the country’s Supreme Court missed out on by not seating him. He looked out on the glass and trash strewn streets, and smoking Capitol building. Garland noted the beaten, bruised, in some cases killed police officers. He beheld the impropriety, blatant flouting of norms, the bending and breaking of the nation’s laws by the man who helped shut the door on his Supreme Court dreams as president. Then he did nothing.
As left-of-center people like me caterwauled for justice, Garland somnolently pursued no legal action or investigation of the former-president. Truth be told, Garland had then, as now, all the passion of small kindling just starting to light but suddenly doused by a bucket of water. He looks like his idea of spicy food is probably something only lightly salted with mayonnaise on the side. He is the embodiment of a catalogue of Air Supply instrumentals by Muzak in your elevator ride to the street.
After we ALL witnessed an insurrection attempt, read the same Tweet (or is it an X now?) from the ringleader that instigated it and watched Orange Julius’ helicopter leave DC like the last ride out of Saigon, Garland seemed perfectly happy to sit in the overstuffed chair at the Department of Justice (DOJ), spin in it and yell, “Weeeeeeee!!” All of 2021 and most of 2022 went by with nary a mention of our DOJ looking for its pound of flesh from an obese fascist. You can check the timeline for yourself. None of us who like to see criminals face trial and jail time were happy.
Someone else wasn’t content either. In fact, he was probably more incensed than the rest of us. Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi was in chambers the day Trump unleashed supporters under the influence of lies in a murderous rage on the Capitol. He beheld the ransacked, window-smashed, feces-smeared legislative chambers, knowing how close he and his fellow legislators came to being mauled to death by people manipulated by disinformation. The following day he released a statement.
“January 6, 2021 will go down in history as the date that an angry mob of domestic terrorists and insurrectionists illegally tried to prevent our elected representatives from fulfilling their constitutional duty in the orderly transfer of power.
It was a sad day for our democracy. The public should rest assured that those of us charged with protecting the homeland will do our utmost to ensure that these terrorists and insurrectionists are held to account and that security is bolstered to guard against future attacks.”
He vowed to do his utmost and do the utmost he did. Speaker Pelosi tried to arrange a bipartisan commission with the cooperation of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy. McCarthy, a spineless weasel of a man, predictably attempted to appease the presidential election loser and selected conspiracy theorist lunatics to represent the Republican party. Pelosi denied his suggestions, grew tired of foolish games and proceeded to select a committee without him after he withdrew his selections.
July 1, 2021, Pelosi announced the United States House Select Committee on the January 6th Attack, naming Rep. Bennie Thompson as the chairman. Chairman Thompson brought along six other Democrats; Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff and Pete Aguilar of California; Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Elaine Luria of Virginia. From the other side of the aisle, he tapped Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinziger of Illinois, naming Cheney Vice Chair.
For the next several months, the committee issued subpoenas, performed investigations, held depositions, examined evidence, including video and print media and worked diligently to curate and present their findings. Trump and his entourage of rabid sycophants spent their days deriding Biden, Thompson and the Committee, the DOJ, and every person formerly in his orbit that now didn’t like the idea of jail and began testifying against him. Tweets (does ANYONE know if they’re called X’s now?), Fox interviews, rally appearances and any other thing that could get attention were used to boost Trump’s profile and his own defense. All the while, Thompson and the committee continued working silently and diligently.
Just shy of a year later, the J6 Committee announced that they were going to begin having televised hearings. They would present to the American people all that they discovered about the failed insurrection attempt, who planned it, who was involved and gave those damned by the evidence collected, the chance to testify and tell their side of the story. This, for all those who subscribe to facts and evidence, don’t inject bleach to kill viruses and don’t admire people who imagine dating their own daughter, was must see TV.
Over the course of ten hearings from June 2022 into December 2022, Chair Thompson and Vice-Chair Cheney, proceeded to tag in the other seven representatives, and each other, to air slickly produced and explosive two-hour presentations of compiled evidence. Many called to testify did not respond; Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Kevin McCarthy, Roger Stone, John Eastman the author of the flawed legal defense of insurrection and others. Many others did testify, most of whom worked in the Trump administration and had a birds-eye view of the attempt to usurp America’s democracy. With the exception of some election workers, media producers and police officers, almost every one of the witnesses were registered Republicans and most worked for Trump. They all confirmed that he knew full well he lost the election, lied anyway, fomented insurrection and tried to overturn the vote.
When the Committee was finished it made the following recommendations. It called for charges of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Conspiracy to Defraud the United States, Conspiracy to Make a False Statement and a charge to Incite, Assist, Aid and Comfort an Insurrection. In November 2022 a month after the J6 Committee aired their penultimate episode, AG Garland named Jack Smith, war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, as a Special Prosecutor. His task was investigating the former-president’s handling of classified documents and his actions around the January 6th insurrection attempt.
The Congress is supposed to craft legislation and the Department of Justice, a law enforcement agency under the executive branch, is supposed to prosecute crime, especially those concerning election laws. However, it was legislators actively pursuing justice, assembling a strong prosecutorial case for a year and a half to argue before the American public, while Garland placidly warmed a seat and apparently didn’t crack a statute book to attempt to prosecute Trump. Go ahead, check the timeline again. Garland is aptly named. A garland is something used as decoration, and all Merrick Garland was doing was adorning a seat while Thompson, Cheney and the rest pursued justice. After they dropped a case cast in iron and wrapped in a bow in his lap, they embarrassed him into doing the very thing he seemingly had no intention of doing: bringing the former President to justice.
After doing all the reading, writing the term paper and filling in the multiple-choice questions on the test, the J6 Committee handed them to the DOJ to sign their name and take credit. Thompson and Cheney’s group essentially compiled, collated, established a timeline, coupled the written material with gripping audiovisual evidence and placed the voluminous trove of evidence in the capable hands of Jack Smith to prosecute. Two or three of the charges Smith filed are the same ones the Committee recommended be pursued.
I have no gripe with Special Counsel Smith. In fact, I hope he’s a resounding success and he nails this citric crook to the wall. My beef is with Garland. His lackadaisical approach and nonchalance now leave the nation racing against time to try an obvious criminal as that Hamburglar runs for election to avoid prison. What if the DOJ pursued Trump, the ringleader that rallied all of the two-bit “militiamen” they’ve been sentencing to two-, three- and five-year sentences, instead of all those small fish? Isn’t it possible they could have gathered evidence to try both sets of people concurrently? Are we to believe that nine members of the House of Representatives and their aids, have more reach and prosecutorial might than the department tasked with dispensing justice?
People are debating the merits of watching Smith present his case live on air before the American people. I’m someone who generally prefers the original film over the sequel. I already watched and liked this movie series with the original cast: Thompson, Cheney, Lofgren, Schiff, Aguilar, Luria, Murphy, Raskin and Kinziger. You can watch the reboot if you feel like it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgawtcOBBjr-xOvmmc6y3VsbjfXqJXsfl