Summary

Merrick Garland’s failure to swiftly prosecute Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection allowed Trump to run for president again in 2024.

Garland’s slow-walking of the investigation undermined the seriousness of Trump’s actions and normalized him as a Republican front-runner.

Garland’s inaction contributed to the current state of the republic, where Trump is poised to return to the White House.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Nah Gaetz will be worse, don’t test it. Garland simply allowed the USA to choose to harm itself, which the whole of the USA have done of their own accord.

    • RestrictedAccount@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Gaetz will be worse.

      Garland had a job to do and he stood and wrung his hands instead of pursuing justice.

      if Garland had done his job, we would not be in this position. He gets credit for both.

  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Just for comparison, the Feds indicted some random person for selling pirated TV shows in 2019 and didn’t get a conviction until this month. That’s five years, and the SCOTUS wasn’t even helping him drag the case out.

    Federal cases take a long time when defendants insist on going to trial and dragging things out.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Marric Garland didn’t even start the poccess until over 2.5 years after it happened.

      for a better comparison, go with Jack Teixera- the Discord Leaks Guy. After they were discovered, it took all of a week to figure out his identity, arrest him, and secure further leaks.

      It took over 6 months to get the documents back- when they knew exactly who had the documents. No investigation necessary. but he didn’t want to be “political.”

      And by the way, those documents are literally damning evidence of violating several laws for which most Americans would be hanged.

      Also, remember, they didn’t actually get them all back. Some of the worst secrets are still missing.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Jack Teixera- the Discord Leaks Guy. After they were discovered, it took all of a week

        The leak occurred in 2022, he was indicted in 2023, and he was sentenced in 2024.

        And he pled guilty.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          What’s your point?

          They discovered the leak in 23- about one week before he was arrested.

          If you want to go back to when the leak occurred… that started fairly early in trumps presidency.

          From the moment the leak was discovered, it took them all of a week to plug it and remove the culprit’s freedom. (Or did you think jack was free to kill around while they waited for an open court date?)

        • tacosplease@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          This is what people don’t get. Garland started immediately. They don’t make big announcements when they start investigating criminals for obvious reasons. The issue is our legal system as a whole.

      • Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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        7 days ago

        I’m curious where this narrative that the case only began in 2023 came from. Smith was appointed in November 2022 and the investigation doesn’t necessarily start when the public finds out or when the prosecutor (special or otherwise) is announced.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      7 days ago

      The idea that there can be no special cases that demand high priority, even when the case is itself about an attack on the republic, is the failure of blind institutionalism. The public also has a right to know that trials will resolve in a timely manner, especially when the trials are about attacks against the People themselves.

      “Justice takes time, let Mueller/Garland/Smith work” was the mantra of failure. There was a fetishization of a higher path, where the machinations of law take as long as they need to, with no deadlines or pressing public questions, but instead of leading to a purer and incontrovertible justice, it led to no justice at all.

      Garland (and Biden as the one who appointed him) have a very direct responsibility for the loss of degradation of the American republic. Even should Trump’s term just pass as a bad four years, long-term damage has been done through this failure.

      • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Special cases cut both ways. Judge Cannon and the SCOTUS would agree with you that Trump was a special case, thus delaying the case further.

        Judge Chutkan insisted on treating Trump like any other defendant. I think she had the right approach.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          6 days ago

          Yes, and they were willing to say that and put it into practice. Guess which side was successful? The feigned indifference to any sort of larger picture by people like Chutkan and Garland contributed to this result.

    • errer@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      This is why Trump can say the government is broken and it resonates with people. These things should not take years and years. “Right to a speedy trial” needs to be upheld.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        The key word there is “right to.” If someone is willing to have a plea deal or move quickly to trial, they can. But if you want, and have the resources to pay for a lawyer, you can delay the process out for a very long time. Just because you have a right to a speedy trial doesn’t mean you have to exercise that right.

        • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          I suggest that we make everyone use a public defender. Problem solved, at least in criminal cases. Nationalize lawyers.

            • themaninblack@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Will not solve delays, but will equalize the field and most likely result in egalitarian improvement in the justice system

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      6 days ago

      There was literally already a report saying he did crime but while he was president could not be prosecuted! Just fucking memory-holed by the Attorney General because somehow ignoring crimes because the criminal is a politician is supposed to be not-political.

    • ME5SENGER_24@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      They’re exactly the same. Biden didn’t act to maintain the status quo; same deal with Garland. You don’t play nice with shitty people, like Trump. You need to be more ruthless. The world watched Jan. 6th happened and the people put in power did nothing to nip it in the bud. Now, we’ve got a second Trump term and it’s all because of inaction because people were scared to ruffle feathers. Those mf’ers deserved to be Randy Johnson’ed

      • GreyYeti@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        To this point- Biden is still the president for 62 more days. Trump has shown what he plans to do with power, and what is Biden doing? The headlines from today were going to the rainforest and awarding CHIPS act money. Not rallying the resistance or doing anything to meaningfully protect us. It’s hard to imagine Biden doing it, but I could see a more energetic and youthful leader actually trying to be a speed bump for Trump. What a shame we’re here.

        • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Yeah, Biden was the exact wrong president for this era.

          The US and indeed the world needed someone bold to take decisive and transformative action to right the ship.

          Instead we got an ancient creature of the establishment rearranging the deck chairs and yelling at people to shut up about the icebergs.

        • leadore@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          He authorized Ukraine to use US missiles to strike inside Russia. Waited too long, but at least he did it. UK has followed suit. So remember, just because the media likes to show the things like going to the rainforest because they have video of it, doesn’t mean he’s not still doing stuff.

          I’ve read that they’ve been doing a lot since well before the election to protect or shore up what things they can to make it harder for Trump to do some of his dictator stuff. Some things they’ve worked on since he first took office. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot that Biden can do on his own that Trump can’t just turn around and undo. But they’re trying to make it as difficult for him as they can bureaucratically.

          As far as rallying a resistance, nope, he’s apparently not willing or able to do anything like that. He greeted Trump like everything was normal, which I found pretty irritating. It’s up to the people. I hope we can find someone charismatic to lead a movement. Charisma seems to be the most important or maybe even the only thing that matters these days.

        • ripcord@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Yeah, he went to the rrainforest so, uh, that’s cool.

          Definitely not a playing fiddle while Rome burns kind of thing.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    I remember when Garland was nominated by Obama, and of course he was a olive branch to the unhinged teabaggers - who then pronounced him to be the second coming of Karl Marx or something. And now we see what a fire-breathing liberal he actually was.

    In any case, the kid-fucker has not held the office yet, so judging if he’d be the worst or not yet is a bit premature even if Garland was unbelievably milquetoast in the fact of an insurrection and a coup attempt.

  • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Two people can both be terrible at the same job. Let’s not forget Gaetz. Garland is terrible and would Gaetz.

  • Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Garland was at best cosplaying a law enforcement official. And doing a real shit job of it. Decent people should spit in disgust if they ever find themselves unfortunate enough to have to speak that Quisling’s name

  • Delta_V@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    American propagandists trying to pin blame on an individual instead of admitting the problems they’re having are symptoms of capitalism, and I’m not buying it for a second.

    • Restaldt@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      There is more than enough blame to go around to pin some on individuals

      Garland deserves a loooot of blame

      Biden does too

      DeJoy does

      Whomst ever decided campaining with the cheneys and advocating for 10 year old GOP policies/talking points instead of leftist economic policy deserves tons of blame

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      This is a bad take.

      I. our system, we have people that are singularly responsible for somethings.

      Merrick Garland was one of those people.

      You “not buying it” changes nothing about the situation.

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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    7 days ago

    What a ridiculous claim by yet another dumb shit who draws equivalence between someone who acts too slowly to punish criminals and the criminals themselves.

    “Forget Hitler. Chamberlain was the worst world leader ever because he didn’t stop Hitler from becoming a far worse world leader than Chamberlain!”