Garland Wasn’t Dragging His Feet — the FBI Was
Politics within the FBI held up the Mar-a-Lago case
I’m a big fan of Nicole Wallace. I watch Deadline White House on MSNBC almost daily and feel a kinship with Miss Wallace and many of her guests.
Today, however, I’m going to let her have it.
For over a year, Wallace has complained about the “glacial pace” of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s various investigations into Donald Trump. I’ve counted so many references to this failing of Garland’s on her show that it’s starting to give me a rash.
At first, I’d calmly respond with an aside to my TV (as if Wallace were inside the television and could hear me). “He’s a little busy right now.” Or “They’re not supposed to talk about cases — just know they are on it.”
I even shouted once, “For f#*k sake! They’ve arrested almost 1,000 people for the Jan. 6 riot and are still prosecuting cases — give the guy a break!”
Imagine the amount of work involved in ramping up the DOJ’s capacity to deal with a thousand people implicated in a single day’s events — and that’s only scratching the surface of what they would eventually need to address.
Once the onsite perpetrators are dealt with, there is all that digging into who planned the event, who might have encouraged others to bring weapons, how logistics were coordinated, and whether or not the various groups talked to each other beforehand. All of this is time-consuming.
Moreover, the insurrection is not the only crime DOJ is responsible for investigating. Surely, Wallace didn’t expect them to stop everything else and focus solely on Trump.
“Why is Garland doing nothing?” Wallace would say. “This is ridiculous,” and so on.
Despite several media appearances during which Garland consistently stated that “no one is above the law” and no matter “how high up” a person is, if criminal activity is supported by evidence, Garland will pursue it.
None of this mattered to Wallace, who seemed to believe the evidence gathered by the Jan. 6 Committee could be messengered over to the DOJ, and viola! They’d have their case.
Knowing something isn’t proving something
Proving something is more challenging than knowing about it. Courts require more than circumstantial evidence. And if we want to talk about delays, what about all the foot-dragging by the Jan. 6 Committee to avoid handing their transcripts to the DOJ?
Imagine how much faster this might have unfolded if the committee members weren’t so fixated on keeping the DOJ’s hands off the committee’s work product.
“We will work with them, but we have a report to do,” Thompson told reporters. “We are not gonna stop what we’re doing to share the information that we’ve gotten so far with the Department of Justice. We have to do our work.”
This was a ridiculous and disingenuous response to a legitimate request. If you can walk and chew gum simultaneously, you can ask an admin to send copies of transcripts without hindering your progress.
Adam Schiff, also a committee member, didn’t just back Thompson’s refusal to turn over the transcripts of their hearings but dared to criticize the DOJ for moving too slowly. You’d think he would understand that having a set of transcripts from depositions taken under oath could have sped up the DOJ’s investigation exponentially.
Yet, despite covering both Schiff’s and Thompson’s refusal to share transcripts with the DOJ, Wallace focused solely on what Garland was not doing … according to her personal, limited perspective.
In her mind, Merrick Garland, not the FBI or the Jan. 6 Committee, was solely responsible for failing to prosecute Trump expeditiously.
But Nicole Wallace was wrong about this, and we now have the evidence to prove it.
FBI stalled when DOJ prosecutors called for a search warrant
We now have insight into why it took until August of 2022 for the FBI to execute a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago — despite calls from the DOJ to move quickly back in May 2022.
We know this delay had nothing to do with Merrick Garland dragging his feet or allowing politics to influence his decisions.
The FBI, not the Attorney General, was putting on the brakes.
Prosecutors argued that new evidence suggested Trump was knowingly concealing secret documents at his Palm Beach, Fla., home and urged the FBI to conduct a surprise raid at the property. But two senior FBI officials who would be in charge of leading the search resisted the plan as too combative and proposed instead to seek Trump’s permission to search his property, according to the four people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a sensitive investigation. — The Washington Post
I can think of three reasons for the FBI’s decision to put the brakes on the Trump search — and none of them are good.
FBI agents were afraid of Trump
FBI agents believed Trump
FBI agents were supporters of Trump
Were FBI agents fearful of Donald Trump?
If evidence suggests that a former president is “knowingly concealing secret documents,” the first and only concern the FBI should have is securing said documents. (This is where Nicole Wallace and I agree 100%).
Also, we need to remember the context here. The disgraced twice-impeached ex-president is arguably the most prolific liar ever. If liar-in-chief were a category in the “Guinness Book of World Records,” Trump would have broken that record multiple times over for the 30,500+ lies he told (and that’s just during his presidency).
Still, knowing this, FBI officials wanted to “ask Trump’s permission” before searching his McMansion. They feared that if they followed the law and treated Trump like anybody else, they would be seen as “combative.”
That’s like the cops telling a woman who has been mugged that they don’t want to arrest the man running away with her purse because it might appear as if they are being punitive.
FBI agents were “inclined” to believe Trump
When Lawrence O’Donnell covered this on his show last week, he was dumbfounded by the response the FBI gave when asked why they wouldn’t support a search warrant and instead preferred to ask the most prolific liar in history if he had any secret documents in his possession.
“We were inclined to believe Trump,” was the answer.
Forgive the sarcasm, but nobody is inclined to believe Trump unless they are also inclined to be stupid. The real reason for the failure of the FBI to act swiftly and professionally likely has less to do with believing Trump and more to do with either the desire to protect Trump or their justifiable fear of him.
Did Trump supporters infiltrate the FBI?
Trump operatives must have infiltrated the FBI. We already know Trump had his hands on the Secret Service and his AG, William Barr, in his back pocket, so it’s not inconceivable that supporters of Trump said they believed him because they wanted to protect him.
But even if a handful of FBI agents were deliberately trying to protect Trump, other agents likely went along because they found it hard to ignore the violent acts Trump supporters have committed on his behalf.
Trump is a mafioso who destroys people who cross him
Talk to Michael Cohen about how Trump keeps people in line. We’ve heard it too. If you listen to the much-publicized phone call with Raffensperger (Georgia Secretary of State), where Trump tried to pressure Raffensperger into “finding” the votes Trump needed to win in Georgia, the attempt at intimidation is clear.
Trump even tries to convince Raffensperger that he (Raffensperger) and his lawyer are in trouble for failing to stop fraud. “You’re letting this happen,” Trump says. “I’m telling you you’re letting this happen. This could be very bad for you.”
That’s the thing about violence — if you encourage angry people willing to do your bidding to “. . . fight like hell or you’re not gonna have a country anymore,” you can’t expect them to sit back and do nothing.
Could fear of violence be why Kevin McCarthy showed up at Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring and pose for photos just two weeks after announcing Trump’s culpability for the riot?
Were Lindsay Graham’s calls to Georgia election officials designed to avoid something worse than being accused of helping Trump steal an election? It wouldn’t necessarily need to be fear of a physical injury; perhaps Trump has enough dirt on Graham to keep him silent indefinitely.
Whatever the answer, I feel vilified in having seen evidence that the speed at which these cases have unfolded is not the result of fear, politics, or any other misguided attempt by the Attorney General to avoid Trump’s wrath or the wrath of his followers.
The roadblocks seem to have come from the FBI and the Jan. 6 Committee — not from Merrick Garland.
So can we please stop bashing Garland now? Please?