How Hutchinson Converted Skeptics To Thinking Trump Might Be Prosecuted After All - TPM – Talking Points Memo

[anthony]

@txlawyer

inciting the riot is a felony, but only a 5-year max. The big gun (so to speak) remains conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, which has a 20-year max

But I would bet that the legally uninformed populace (me) would feel incitement to riot is more serious and newsworthy.

Anyway, I will admit off the bat that I am more concerned with the political fallout of a decision to indict or not indict than whether Trump is deserving of incarceration (he is).

If indicted, it is bound to stir up the Republican base and even possibly some not in that base. Republican turnout might skyrocket.

If not indicted, we still have Trump, with all of his incompetence and now highly discredited. He has actually done us some good so far. Josh Marshall just noted today that we have a poll saying that Raphael Warnock has a 10 point lead over his Trump-picked candidate. In my state of PA, I am inclined to thank Trump for endorsing Dr. Oz, a resident of the great state of New Jersey.

And in the more distant future, don’t you just want to see a Republican contest of the Presidency where Trump decides to go nuclear over any attempt to deny him the nomination? He is likely to take a wrecking ball to the Republican Party.

He can’t do that from jail, or at least I don’t think he can.

[pluckyinky]

@daled

If those living in MAGAland continue to support Trump, even his prosecution and conviction will not notably change the political landscape nor heal the division in this country.

Those divisions will never be healed. I don’t want to be united with white supremacist thugs. The rest of us have got to move on without these people. The very worst thing our side can do is to continue to allow our politics and our national conversation to stay centered around this man and his dimwitted supporters. They will either move on or they will stay mired in the past pining for a man who’ll never again be president.

@txlawyer

The big gun (so to speak) remains conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, which has a 20-year max, and for which almost all of the guilty parties sentenced for it so far are receiving in the neighborhood of 4-6 years in prison.

I feel fairly confident that a mere five year sentence would be a death sentence for Trump. The damage to his psyche, his ego would be too much too for him to handle.

@castor_troy

They just needed him unavailable until Grassley could complete the new count.

Bunker in WV would’ve done the trick just fine, “for security reasons”.

Agreed. I don’t think killing him was the goal, but as someone who watches a lot of true crime TV, it never ceases to amaze me how often kidnap victims wind up dead. Somebody put the bindings on too tight and they asphyxiated. JimBob thought he was trying to make a run for it. Terry decided they couldn’t leave witnesses…

[21zna9]

@nocoolnamejim

Until Garland actually goes after any of the big names, I will remain skeptical that he has the guts to do the job that is needed. The DOJ has had all the time that Congress has had to build their case and has nothing but street thugs to show for it.

It’s on Garland to prove that he deserves the job he currently has, because to this point he’s one of the most disappointing of Biden’s appointments for me personally.

I completely agree but round here them’s fighting words. Nobody dares to criticize The Silent Assassin.

[mmell]

Isn’t it strange that the rioters in the Capitol never found anyone? I think they were instructed not to actually find any politicians if they could help it. They cleared the halls and were waiting around, we know now, for Dump to arrive.

[txlawyer]

@nocoolnamejim

Why does the DOJ need to ask Congress for this stuff?

Because Congress has the transcripts and isn’t sharing them. DOJ can’t just haul off and subpoena a co-equal branch of government.

Now, prepare to have your mind blown, because what follows is the absolutely true story of why DOJ had to request all those transcripts so urgently.

So a few weeks ago, a clever defense attorney in the Proud Boys seditious conspiracy case pointed out to the judge that the government hadn’t provided any transcripts of the J6 committee’s interviews in discovery. To which a clever prosecutor responded that they don’t have any obligation to produce the committee’s transcripts because DOJ doesn’t have them and it can’t just go make a coequal branch of government hand over its stuff. To which the clever judge responded that he agreed with the prosecutor, but still ordered them to hand over any Brady material within 3 days of receiving the transcripts from Congress.

And the very next day, the committee played video from its interview with one of the prosecutors’ star witnesses in the seditious conspiracy case, a Proud Boy who had pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government. And nobody realized this dude had testified to the committee! So now the prosecution desperately needs to know whether that asshole testified differently to the committee than he told the FBI and prosecutors in their interviews with him. Because if he’s changing his story, the Proud Boys prosecution could be absolutely fucked.

So prosecutors need to get that transcript. But if they request it and the committee turns it over, they’ve just provided proof of concept that the prosecutors can in fact get stuff from the committee. So the only way to avoid the inevitable claim that DOJ was improperly cherrypicking which transcripts were going to be subject to discovery and which weren’t was to request all the transcripts so that any with potentially exonerative evidence could be produced in discovery.

Again, that’s the 100% true story. The committee and DOJ weren’t being fully transparent with each other, and now everybody’s having to fight for their own institutional turf as a result.

[enceladus]

Kudos to Josh Kovensky for calling tfg’s J6 speech low-class , among other things. Accurate, appropriate, and it made me laugh because it describes so much about tRump yet isn’t a term corporate journalists are willing to apply.

[castor_troy]

@emiliano4

The lessons of WWII are not even talked about…

Which part? The discrimination and segregation and horrendous treatment of Black soldiers by white soldiers? The mass incarceration of Americans of Japanese descent?

I mean, picking apart the actual history, a big happy country just pulling together and doing everything to make us win really has some big holes in it.

Almost like we never actually have been as united as we’ve grown mythology to make it appear around certain periods.

[geographyjones]

You’re right. It always seems to be a cascade effect of unintended consequences. A comedy of errors.

[dr_coyote]

@pluckyinky

I don’t want to be united with white supremacist thugs. The rest of us have got to move on without these people.

Hard agree. Some of my ancestors were (18th C) white supremacist thugs. I have a shit-ton of #reparations to pay, and I want those MAGAt bastards broken and driven across the land. Kill the (metaphorical) snake.

@21zna9

Ah, the lame excuse brigade to the rescue!

Ha. Ha.

[nocoolnamejim]

Granted, yes, the DOJ has other stuff going on…but that’s why you prioritize. There is nothing more important than the J6 events for the DOJ. Nothing at all.

And if things like “beefing up staffing” is important, it still raises the question, “well, Congress doesn’t have whole departments full of people dedicated to gathering this information up”. And they have another responsibility or two as well.

Gathering this sort of information and acting on it is literally the DOJ’s sole focus and job. Congress, on the other hand, has a whole lot of other jobs and responsibilities and they aren’t, supposedly, the professionals. This also doesn’t address the point of why the DOJ is suddenly moving so much faster after the hearings than before. Why was Eastman’s phone only seized in the last few days just as one example? Why all of these new raids just since the hearings started for example?

Congress, even with all of the other things on their own plate and this not being their sole focus, has (at least according to the publicly available evidence) built all the case that they have publicly presented for us to see with our own eyes that is needed to start prosecuting.

I do want to believe that the DOJ is diligently hard at work and they will, as Garland has said, follow where the information leads. But the timing of some of their actions can also easily be interpreted as acting now that they’ve basically been embarrassed publicly by what the Jan 6th hearings has revealed.

[txlawyer]

@pluckyinky

I feel fairly confident that a mere five year sentence would be a death sentence for Trump.

Which is why we’ve got to give them room to work up the conspiracy to obstruct charge. Because realistically, if he only gets busted for CONFRAUD or incitement, he’s looking at less than a year in prison. And he might actually be capable of toughing that out.

[castor_troy]

@nocoolnamejim

There is nothing more important than the J6 events for the DOJ. Nothing at all.

???

Garland Says DOJ Will Protect Right to Get Abortion Out-of-State

???

First on CNN: Justice Department sues Texas county, saying its redistricting...

???

Georgia man charged with federal hate crimes for two racially motivated...

I mean, literally could do this all day. But sure, guess we don’t need to worry about voting rights, hate crimes, womens’ rights or anything else that falls under DOJ, so long as we nail Trump and his cronies NOW.

[jm917]

Gene Debs ran for president (Socialist Party) in 1920 from his cell in the Atlanta Penitentiary, where he’d been incarcerated after being convicted of violating the Espionage Act–for opposing World War I and urging resistance to the draft. He won almost a million popular votes despite the Red Scare (although he’d also won almost a million votes in 1912, before the Seventeenth Amendment gave the vote to women, thus doubling the electorate).

So yes, Trump could be a wrecking ball in the 2024 election even if he’s jugged up in the Federal Supermax. Individual states, I suppose, could keep him off their ballots as a convicted felon, but presumably the red states wouldn’t bar him.

[runfastandwin]

It’s already too late. Garland should’ve known all this by last July fer chrissakes. No matter what happens from here on the damage is done. And Biden shares the blame sadly.

[eldonlazar]

A five-year sentence would take him out of the '24 election. Also, he wouldn’t be able to run his mouth or thumbs for that period; time for the deprogramming to begin.

[geographyjones]

@thunderclapnewman I got this.

Fatuous Twaddle!

[southerndem]

Giuliani Throws Out Some Profanity After Mayor Adams Said He Filed A False Police Report | Crooks and Liars

[dbeall]

If he’s found guilty – his support will fall significantly. His supporters are delusional, but Americans tend to be quite literal about criminals.

[anthony]

@pluckyinky

The very worst thing our side can do is to continue to allow our politics and our national conversation to stay centered around this man and his dimwitted supporters.

No, but I wouldn’t mind if his dimwitted supporters had a war amongst themselves over whether Trump continues to be their guy or those who realize he is now severely damaged goods. Rather than wanting Trump in prison, I want Republicans to pay for their bargain with the devil.

[thunderclapnewman]

@nocoolnamejim

Until Garland actually goes after any of the big names,

One more fucking time.

The DoJ investigations into the J6 fiasco are being run by the US Atty for DC.
Garland has a mostly policy oriented job.

There are at least two grand juries taking testimony now.
Prosecutions are not about crimes.
Prosecutions are about evidence.

It can take two years or more to build a case that is pretty sure to result in someone going to prison.

Your feelings about Garland are not important, and don’t have anything to do with how DoJ is pursuing its investigations.