“Top of the world, Ma!”
Judging by the comments I read here, “we all” does not mean what you think it does.
I have to wonder if their rebuttal will include a variety of shades of admission or commission. Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone on that team were stupid enough to post an admission that they did some of the stuff they’re being accused of, but did it for the love of TFG?
The criminal referrals don’t mean shit, in a legal sense. The department of justice is under no obligation to do anything with the referrals. If the jan 6th committee had sent over their evidence without any criminal referrals, that would have had just as much effect: the deparment of justice is interested in the evidence, they don’t give a damn about some critters’ opinions on criminality.
??? Discobot wants a complete sentence, so here it is. My question marks are the real message.
And I want the impossible, so when DBB gives me the impossible, I’ll work within his rules…
My esteemed fake-colleague Andrew Weissman says that these referrals are more than recommendations and less than actionable indictments. They serve to summarize the vast amount of information collected and to present it in a digestible way for a public that will be largely unwilling or unable to plow through the written report.
This should be an interesting week.
It would be nice to get by without the inevitable whining and grievance performance art, but even that might reach new levels of absurdity that will be somewhat entertaining.
Just as an aside, Cagney did several of the most memorable climactic death scenes ever. Maybe even better than the “top of the world” one is the ending of The Roaring Twenties, with the mortally wounded Cagney staggering halfway up the front steps of a church before collapsing.
“He used to be a big shot.”
I expect DOJ does care in that they would prefer Congress NOT recommend charges if for no ther reason is that it adds more layers of scrutinty and politics to a subject already deeply into that territory already…
The referrals, done on TV, are for the public. It makes it harder for TDFG and the Repubs to declare complete exoneration due to the lack of an official statement from the committee. They’ll do it anyway, but it will carry less weight, particularly with those that actually watched the hearings. The DOJ is just interested in all of the taped interviews.
Indeed. I do believe it matters in the sphere of public opinion, and I do believe puts some pressure on the DoJ to either indict or provide an at least cogent explanation of why it will not do so.
Agreed. It put pressure to press charges. AND pressures NOT to press charges as to not look like a Democratic DOJ is doing the bidding of an outgoing Democratic Congress.
It’s on.
If they had the courage of their convictions they’d give their rebuttal holding flagpoles and nooses. And I’d like to see them have to deal with with personal convictions of the ‘go directly to jail’ type.
This.
And I do not think we should underestimate exactly how important this can be in shaping public opinion and support for the process of indicting and prosecuting a former president of the US. You can’t fight GQP sound bites with hundreds or thousands of pages of text and footnotes – the sound bites which have come out of the presentations are the only real amunition we have at the moment to fight the deluge of bullshit coming toward us.
Sure, legally these have no real meaning. Psychologically, these hearings and what is happening today are invaluable – and I highly applaud the polished and professionally presented work of the committee.
I remain hopeful.
The DoJ will always have problems explaining why it doesn’t indict someone after public knowledge of an investigation. The basic answer is “not enough evidence to convince a jury.” But then, they can’t reveal the evidence they had, because it would be an accusation against the target without the target’s recourse to a defense at trial. So you have to take their word that it was a good decision.
…it is to ride-- ♫♪