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Wednesday Morning Rant

A Pathetic Conclusion

Or, if not a conclusion, a pathetic end to a chapter. In my New Year's Day word hole (don't comment on old threads), I wrote this about what I expected in 2025:

The "Resistance" types are not going away, and are not going to be quitting on day 1. They're dug in like ticks and will do exactly what they did last time. ... I expect little to no progress in Justice, State, Treasury, EPA or any of those agencies comprising the IC.

It's far too early to say "I was right" but Jack Smith is trying to make it easy on me.

(Pseudo) Special Council Jack Smith, who was looking into Trump's "insurrection" for years for the Party men at Justice, has concluded in his report that he was in fact totally right and the only reason Trump is going to walk away from his egregious crimes is because he happened to get re-elected. It's your fault that justice is not done, not his. His case was airtight, you know. It's just that you rubes had to go re-elect the worst of all men to office.

The article linked above is to the BBC because I'd rather not give a domestic press outfit any clicks, but the report itself has been cached by Bloomberg. It makes for some interesting reading. First, of course, is the self-congratulation:

On the day that I was appointed, I pledged that I would exercise independent judgment, follow the best traditions of the Department of Justice, and conduct my work expeditiously and thoroughly to reach whatever outcome the facts and law dictated. With the aid of an outstanding team, that is what I did. Upon my appointment, I organized a staff of experienced career federal prosecutors, and together we conducted the investigations and subsequent prosecutions under our mandate, consistent with the Department's traditions of integrity and nonpartisanship that have guided all of us throughout our careers.

Doubtless. They upheld, to the letter, to the last punctuation mark, the DoJ's traditions of integrity and nonpartisanship that it has been upholding for generations: a total lack of integrity and nonpartisanship, acting as hatchet men for the Party. They did a splendid job in upholding the DoJ's core values of skulduggery and railroading.

Then, of course, there is deranged coping about the unfairness of it. It's not Jack Smith's fault that Trump is a free man, but it isn't entirely your fault, either. Some of the blame lies with Merrick Garland:

As described above, it has long been the Department's interpretation that the Constitution forbids the federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President, but the election results raised for the first time the question of the lawful course when a private citizen who has already been indicted is then elected President. The Department determined that the case must be dismissed without prejudice before Mr. Trump takes office, and the Office therefore moved to dismiss the indictment on November 25, 2024.

You see, it wasn't Smith's fault, it was "The Department's" fault - that is, Garland's. Smith has hope for retribution to be imposed by someone else in the future, of course (dismissed without prejudice, rather than with), but he took the opportunity to throw his boss under the bus on his way out.

That is because he is, of course, right. If not for niggling things like "the law" or "the will of the people," they totally could have made the case:

The Department's view that the Constitution prohibits the continued indictment and prosecution of a President is categorical and does not tum on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government's proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Office stands fully behind.

In that case, one must ask: then why isn't Trump in prison? If this case was in fact iron-clad, fully justified and with mountains of evidence behind it, why the years of dicking around instead of taking it over the finish line? Could it possibly have been because of - GASP - politics? Could it have possibly been because - and bear with me, because I know I'm going way out on a limb here - because there was never anything to it other than what Trump said about it: that it's a witch hunt?

The last line truly is a thing of beauty:

Indeed, but for Mr. Trump's election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.

"I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids" is one hell of a closing sentence.

Trump's lawyers' concluding statement objecting to the report is a bit closer to reality than anything in the report itself:

The time has come to put an end to this weaponization of the justice system and move forward constructively. No report should be prepared or released, and Smith should be removed, including for even suggesting that course of action given his obvious political motivations and desire to lawlessly undermine the transition.

"The Department," of course, did release the report. They can't fire Smith, though, and neither can Trump. He conveniently resigned a few days ago.

So Jack Smith issued a petulant, ridiculous, self-aggrandizing work of fiction to keep the fires of hate and vengeance burning before shouting to nobody in particular, "you can't fire me! I quit!" Smith is gone, but his ilk are not. DoJ is still DoJ, and will keep on doing what it does. If Trump fires all the US Attorneys on day 1, it will help a bit - but Pam Bondi has her work cut out for her if she hopes to even make a dent in this thoroughly rotten bureau.