Let's be clear. Tribe and Weissman are full of shit about the Trump investigations

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Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️@tribelaw
As @AWeissmann_ argued from the start, AG Garland’s bottom-up, follow-the-money approach was wrong-headed and ill-suited to the kind of election crime obviously at issue here. We’re all paying the price.

Wow. Can you think of anything more absurd than spending years castigating Trump for his autocratic politicization of justice, and then complaining because your own party's president's DOJ didn't do the exact same?

I mean, that's what the 'Garland late' canard has devolved into. Just a complaint that the DOJ prosecutions of Trump didn't commence in time to convict him before the election, as if that, by itself, would relieve Democrats of organizing that defeat at the ballot box; or as if merely convicting or charging Trump would bar him from running or assuming office if elected.

Have we really come to the point where a convicted rapist and fraudster who openly associates with Russians and white supremacists while leveling attacks against Americans and the country is some surmountable obstacle for the party that we need to use our admin's Justice Dept. to advantage us in the election?

That's what this sophistry against Merrick Garland is centered on. I hesitate to say that's what it's all about because it's so false and ridiculously contradictory that it just seems like pure trolling.

The premise behind all of the over-the-top vitriol is that the AG has lost us the election, despite his office and appointments filling out the stated aims of the Jan. 6 committee investigation (self-declared incomplete by the chairman) to the letter, and beyond.

The NYT sham of an article (and Tribe) complains about DOJ's 'bottom-up investigation,' as if they were in some sort of bubble of indifference about the Trump WH.

Schiff should be thanking DOJ for doing what Congress could only talk about. The Jan. 6 panel drew a straight line from Trump to the OKs and PBs, and Garland's DOJ made that case in court with convictions up to sedition and obstructing the vote, several cooperating with the DOJ.

But was the Jan 6. panel Schiff sat on wrong in their own 'bottom-up approach? Is that what Tribe thinks? Weissmann?

Of course, fucking not. They're too busy feathering their sophistry about DOJ. But, lookee here:

Jan. 6 Panel Drew A Straight Line From Trump To The Proud Boys And Oath Keepers

The committee made clear that it viewed the Trumpian conspiracy to overturn the election as a months-long plot, and it applied the same logic to Trump’s relationship to these right-wing extremist groups, featuring testimony from a member of the Proud Boys saying Trump’s presidential debate command to them to “stand back and stand by” — all the way back in September 2020 — boosted membership “exponentially.”

They traced the relationship from there, including testimony from multiple Proud Boys saying they were in D.C. on Jan. 6 because Trump asked them to be there. The panel presented extensive footage of the groups on the day itself, labeling the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as such when they appeared on camera. And Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) said the Proud Boys “ultimately led the invasion of the Capitol, and the violence on that day.”

I mean, wtf does Tribe say about the Jan. 6 committee's efforts and direction, since Schiff, Weissmann, and others criticizing Garland want to pretend the toothless, incomplete congressional hearings that DELAYED actual PB and OK trials were superior and ultimately influential to DOJ?

NPR: Jan. 6 panel shows evidence of coordination between far-right groups and Trump allies

The House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol tried to make the case Tuesday that far-right groups and the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election are inextricably linked, detailing the mobilization of extremist groups after then-President Trump sent a tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, calling for supporters to protest in D.C. on Jan. 6.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/12/1111132464/jan-6-hearing-recap-oath-keepers-proud-boys

And that's all we hear from Garland critics; that Congress was ahead of DOJ. But Congress DELAYED actual trials of PBs and OKs who the committee identified as an essential link to the Trump WH by holding back witness testimony needed to reconcile with DOJ evidence and demanded in discovery by both defendants in both trials until late that year.

Let's get this straight. Garland was following the money trail from the insurrectionist riot groups long before the committee was a sparkle in the chairman's eye:

___

Thomas Windom, a little-known federal prosecutor who was representing the Special Counsel position today on the Trump protective order, is the man Deputy AG Lisa Monaco tasked in Fall 2021 to oversee key elements of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election results - one of the first indications that Trump and his associates were under DOJ investigation.

NYT:

"It (was) Mr. Windom, working under the close supervision of Garland’s top aides, who is executing the department’s time-tested, if slow-moving, strategy of working from the periphery of the events inward..."

"He ha(d) been leading investigators who have been methodically seeking information about the roles played by some of Mr. Trump’s top advisers, including Rudolph W. Giuliani, Jenna Ellis and John Eastman, with a mandate to go as high up the chain of command as evidence warrants."

"Mr. Windom’s second objective — mirroring one focus of the Jan. 6 committee — is a widening investigation into the group of lawyers close to Mr. Trump who helped to devise and promote the plan to create alternate slates of electors."

The other investigative team, looking at efforts to block the transfer of power from Trump to President Joe Biden after the 2020 election, had even a year ago been given the greenlight by the Justice Department to take a case all the way up to Trump, if the evidence leads them there, according to the sources. Work that’s been led by the DC US Attorney’s Office into political circles around Trump related to January 6 now will move under the special counsel.

Partly led by former Maryland-based federal prosecutor Thomas Windom, DOJ has added prosecutors to the January 6 team from all over the department in recent months. Windom and the rest are also expected to move over to the special counsel’s office. Some, like Mary Dohrmann, a prosecutor who’s worked on several other Capitol riot cases already, appear to be reorienting, according to court records of open Capitol riot cases.   

Another top prosecutor, JP Cooney, the former head of public corruption in the DC US Attorney’s Office, is overseeing a significant financial probe that Smith will take on. The probe includes examining the possible misuse of political contributions, according to some of the sources. The DC US Attorney’s Office, before the special counsel’s arrival, had examined potential financial crimes related to the January 6 riot, including possible money laundering and the support of rioters’ hotel stays and bus trips to Washington ahead of January 6.

In recent months, however, the financial investigation has sought information about Trump’s post-election Save America PAC and other funding of people who assisted Trump, according to subpoenas viewed by CNN. The financial investigation picked up steam as DOJ investigators enlisted cooperators months after the 2021 riot, one of the sources said.

In interviews with people in Trump’s orbit over the past several months, some of the DOJ focus has been on the timeline leading up to January 6 and Trump’s involvement and knowledge of potential events that day, according to a source familiar with the questioning.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/index.html

...here we can see Garland's team, already far ahead of Mueller's entire investigation, and Jack Smith taking on over 20 prosecutors in a 'fast moving investigation.'

___ Jack Smith takes over a staff that’s already nearly twice the size of Robert Mueller’s team of lawyers who worked on the Russia probe.  A team of 20 prosecutors investigating January 6 and the effort to overturn the 2020 election are in the process of moving to work under Smith, according to multiple people familiar with the team.

Smith will also take on national security investigators already working the probe into the potential mishandling of federal records taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House.

Together, the twin investigations have already established more evidence than what Mueller started with, including from a year-long financial probe that’s largely flown under the radar.

“Mueller was starting virtually from scratch, whereas Jack Smith is seemingly integrating on the fly into an active, fast-moving investigation,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor and senior CNN legal analyst.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/11/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-high-profile-moves-trump-criminal-investigations/index.html


...Tribe and Weissmann are just beating up DOJ for not only pursuing the Trump WH's financial trails, but also filling out what Congress had made their entire fuss about.

You can't credibly elevate the non-enforcing Jan 6 committee over DOJ, above the people who actually did the work of gathering evidence that can stand the rigors of appeals and challenges.

It's just galling to hear these second-guessing complaints about DOJ's 'bottom up' approach at the same time they're giving props to the Jan. 6 committee who actually directed them to the riot leaders.

At least they should get their stories straight about the prosecution they're criticizing, which, other than the contradictory imaginings that make up most of the claims against them, looks an awful lot like the imaginary one they've been lauding.