• Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
The Screaming Moderate

Trump is lucky Merrick Garland makes the decision on indicting him

9/1/2022

1 Comment

 
Donald J. Trump doesn’t know exactly how lucky he is that Attorney General Merrick Garland will make the ultimate decision on whether the former president is indicted.

Garland by various measurements done when he was nominated to the Supreme Court by then-President Obama was a moderate. At best, or worst depending on your view, he was moderate-to-liberal. His record as a judge, the clerks he hired and other measurements used make him a solid moderate. Yes, he was nominated by the liberal Obama but it’s not certain how he would have voted on issues that came before the Court.

Then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked Garland’s appointment not because he was certain that Garland would vote to maintain abortion as a right, but because he knew Garland would vote based on the law. Roe v. Wade was settled law just as nearly every Republican nominee has led the Senate and the country to believe they thought too.

And this Supreme Court, dominated by Trump appointees but wholly supported and recommended by McConnell, voted to end that right to abortion based on the views of right-wing conservatives who fought years to have it taken away and his religious base which supposedly wants abortions banned in all forms, even incest.

Just ask Republican Sen. Susan Collins what she thought the Trump nominees were testifying to in their hearings. She’ll tell you but then won’t do anything different in the future or say the   nominees lied to her face in private in meetings in her office.  She treated it as an oops not as a decision that already has had significant impact on women and their health.

But Garland is cut from a different cloth.  With his leadership, the Justice Department is doing its talking on the issues involving Trump through court filings, which must be truthful. Trump, on the other hand, has made Truth Social statements and had his spokesmen speak for him but Trump, throughout his career, is normally very careful about what he says so he is not responsible for anything.

This time, though, because he reacted, as always, politically, not legally, he blew it. Not only did his lawyers admit in a court filing that he had classified documents but Trump posted this on his Twitter-like Truth Social:

“There seems to be confusion as to the ‘picture’ where documents were sloppily thrown on the floor and then released photographically for the world to see, as if that’s what the FBI found when they broke into my home. Wrong! They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big 'find' for them. They dropped them, not me - Very deceiving…And remember, we could have NO representative, including lawyers, present during the Raid. They were told to wait outside.”

Read it again and you’ll not only see his admission of guilt but that his mind, rather than understanding he was admitting to breaking a law involving highly secret government documents, went straight to “I don’t keep a messy office. They set me up.”

Donald Trump, meet truth. Truth, meet Donald Trump.

So, he admitted he had the classified documents in his unsecured mansion. Case Closed. Or is it?

Garland must weigh whatever more evidence his department has before indicting a former President. It is not a no-brainer, as it appears to many non-lawyers.

Garland will consider the facts, not that Trump could send his supporters back into insurrection mode as Sen. Lindsay Graham threatened the other day but because it would set a precedent for charging former presidents with crimes. That decision must meet a very high bar before any charge can be brought.

I know many people have read about what’s going on and believe Trump is guilty of serious crimes but that is not a court of law, where evidence must be submitted and witnesses interrogated and cross-examined. It better be one air-tight case to convince a jury that Trump, or any future president, committed serious crimes.

Only because he is the President now, Joe Biden will be the target  if Republicans take over the House and especially if they also take the Senate. Not because Biden has broken any laws, but because the Republicans who now run that party don’t care about facts or the truth. They say it, therefore it is true.

And their media lackeys repeat it. And repeat it. And then a solid portion of their voters believe it. Therefore, they all will expect payback when Republicans are in that position.

That’s not Garland’s style. He’s a “just the facts, ma’am” kind of guy. When the investigation is done, we’ll see what he does. 

Garland has a very heavy and historic decision to make. And he knows it.

And Donald Trump is one lucky guy that Merrick Garland is the one making it.


1 Comment
Albert Rogers link
11/12/2022 12:04:57 am

Rise lay south join large according. What since service outside.
Your upon argue food determine production treatment. Watch camera weight yet form court long simple. Thank beat lot rich safe small.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

     
    Follow @bjaycooper

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

powered by bjaycooper.com