The House select committee on Jan. 6 has taken pains to lay out the process by which Donald Trump worked step by step, through plan after plan, in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. They have been upfront about their intentions. Open about their findings. The committee’s step-by-step building of the case against Trump and those who worked with him closely seems completely at odds with the visible portion of the Department of Justice’s involvement in Jan. 6 events—which, so far, has been limited to prosecuting those who directly participated in the assault on the Capitol.
In public hearings, the committee has demonstrated just how much evidence has been collected that Trump schemed with his associates, long before the election, to pretend that there was election fraud when he lost at the polls. After the election came the effort to lean on local and state officials to simply get them to change the numbers. Then there was the effort to fill the courts with FUD in hopes Trump would get what he wanted from his radical Supreme Court. Then there was the effort to create slates of fake electors before the safe harbor deadline on Dec. 8, or the electors' submission on Dec. 14. It was only when all of that failed that Trump and his cohorts created the plot that became Jan. 6.
In recent days, there are at least hints that below what seems to be a thin skin of surface ice, there might actually be an iceberg of investigation at the Department of Justice (DOJ). One of the latest signs comes in the revelation that state lawmakers involved in the fake electors scheme have been subject to federal subpoenas. But it’s another reminder of just how not open the DOJ is being.
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The frustration with the DOJ, and specifically with Attorney General Merrick Garland, has been simmering ever since President Joe Biden took office. Even as the news has brought seemingly daily revelations of the massive criminality behind Trump’s Big Lie, the DOJ has seemed to hesitate to do more than slowly, very slowly, prosecute people for trespassing and other relatively minor offensives. Even where there were more serious charges, as with those involved in the Proud Boys, there has been little apparent evidence that the department was checking out those who were giving orders, rather than those who were taking them.
As Laura Clawson noted just yesterday, it seems very easy to believe that Merrick Garland somehow overlooked the idea that what happened on Jan. 6 was an actual threat to the nation. From everything seen in public, the Jan. 6 attack is being treated more like a march that got out of hand, rather than a small part of an extensive coup plot that made multiple runs at bringing down the nation.
It’s not as if the DOJ has taken no steps. From existing searches and subpoenas, it’s clear that the department is investigating: Attorney Jeffery Clark, who made a deal with Trump to take over as attorney general in exchange for making false claims about election fraud in Georgia; attorney John Eastman, the principal author of the legal pretense behind the Jan. 6 plot; and attorney Rudy Giuliani, who knowingly spread false claims about fraud. However, there seems little to no evidence that Trump or many of the senior staffers directly involved in one or more of these coup plots are being investigated.
Just one day later, all of that is … still absolutely true.
On Monday evening, we did get one of those clues that there is something actually afoot. As The Washington Post reports, Monday saw the release of two subpoenas that were issued to Republican state senators in Arizona over their involvement in the false electors scheme. The Post notes that this is part of an apparent “significant escalation and expansion of the Justice Department’s criminal probe of the events of and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021,” that became apparent in mid-June with searches like those connected to Clark and Eastman.
It’s another piece of the visible puzzle that shows there is a larger investigation at work. As Rebekah Sager reported, we also learned on Monday that Marc Short, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, apparently gave testimony before a federal grand jury last week. However, the most frustrating thing about that information, is that it seems to have come accidentally through photographers who were at the courthouse only to photograph Steve Bannon following his conviction on contempt of Congress.
Oh, and there was the memo that Garland sent earlier this month reminding everyone not to allow “partisan politics” to play a role in the investigation, and to watch out that they didn’t select dates for events or announcements that could be seen as manipulating elections. Like what former FBI Director James did when he blew up the 2016 election with an announced investigation just one week before Election Day.
In one sense, the DOJ can afford to conduct its case in a bottom-up, step-by-step, slow-and-steady method, because it has more time. The House select committee needs to be open. It needs to shoot straight for the top. It needs to move quickly. Because anything that committee needs to say has to be said before November, when Republicans could possibly take it over and either destroy it or turn it into a weekly prime-time presentation in defense of Trump’s Big Lie, complete with select showings from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The DOJ has essentially twice as much time to make its case—though should they get to 2024 and declare that the investigation was on hold because of the election year, they could be facing a whole new kind of riot.
It’s hard to pretend there was anything good about Comey’s asinine, I-know-better-than-everyone decision to vomit all over the 2016 election in a perversion of “openness.” But if there is anything that Merrick Garland could do to make the current situation better, it would simply be to open the door a crack—let us know that the Department of Justice is working Jan. 6 as a whole, and not just dealing with some trespassing here, a conspiracy to commit fraud there, as if none of these crimes were part of a larger plan.
What’s still missing is just what Laura Clawson noted on Monday—a sense that Garland understands the scale and importance of these events. In 2016, even if it turned out that Hillary Clinton had screwed up her emails to the extent that critics alleged, it would have been nothing. A minor issue barely worthy of a wrist slap. In 2020, what happened was a direct threat to the existence of the United States.
It shouldn’t be treated like an ordinary investigation. Because it’s not.
Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.
In public hearings, the committee has demonstrated just how much evidence has been collected that Trump schemed with his associates, long before the election, to pretend that there was election fraud when he lost at the polls. After the election came the effort to lean on local and state officials to simply get them to change the numbers. Then there was the effort to fill the courts with FUD in hopes Trump would get what he wanted from his radical Supreme Court. Then there was the effort to create slates of fake electors before the safe harbor deadline on Dec. 8, or the electors' submission on Dec. 14. It was only when all of that failed that Trump and his cohorts created the plot that became Jan. 6.
In recent days, there are at least hints that below what seems to be a thin skin of surface ice, there might actually be an iceberg of investigation at the Department of Justice (DOJ). One of the latest signs comes in the revelation that state lawmakers involved in the fake electors scheme have been subject to federal subpoenas. But it’s another reminder of just how not open the DOJ is being.
Campaign Action
The frustration with the DOJ, and specifically with Attorney General Merrick Garland, has been simmering ever since President Joe Biden took office. Even as the news has brought seemingly daily revelations of the massive criminality behind Trump’s Big Lie, the DOJ has seemed to hesitate to do more than slowly, very slowly, prosecute people for trespassing and other relatively minor offensives. Even where there were more serious charges, as with those involved in the Proud Boys, there has been little apparent evidence that the department was checking out those who were giving orders, rather than those who were taking them.
As Laura Clawson noted just yesterday, it seems very easy to believe that Merrick Garland somehow overlooked the idea that what happened on Jan. 6 was an actual threat to the nation. From everything seen in public, the Jan. 6 attack is being treated more like a march that got out of hand, rather than a small part of an extensive coup plot that made multiple runs at bringing down the nation.
It’s not as if the DOJ has taken no steps. From existing searches and subpoenas, it’s clear that the department is investigating: Attorney Jeffery Clark, who made a deal with Trump to take over as attorney general in exchange for making false claims about election fraud in Georgia; attorney John Eastman, the principal author of the legal pretense behind the Jan. 6 plot; and attorney Rudy Giuliani, who knowingly spread false claims about fraud. However, there seems little to no evidence that Trump or many of the senior staffers directly involved in one or more of these coup plots are being investigated.
Just one day later, all of that is … still absolutely true.
On Monday evening, we did get one of those clues that there is something actually afoot. As The Washington Post reports, Monday saw the release of two subpoenas that were issued to Republican state senators in Arizona over their involvement in the false electors scheme. The Post notes that this is part of an apparent “significant escalation and expansion of the Justice Department’s criminal probe of the events of and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021,” that became apparent in mid-June with searches like those connected to Clark and Eastman.
It’s another piece of the visible puzzle that shows there is a larger investigation at work. As Rebekah Sager reported, we also learned on Monday that Marc Short, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, apparently gave testimony before a federal grand jury last week. However, the most frustrating thing about that information, is that it seems to have come accidentally through photographers who were at the courthouse only to photograph Steve Bannon following his conviction on contempt of Congress.
Oh, and there was the memo that Garland sent earlier this month reminding everyone not to allow “partisan politics” to play a role in the investigation, and to watch out that they didn’t select dates for events or announcements that could be seen as manipulating elections. Like what former FBI Director James did when he blew up the 2016 election with an announced investigation just one week before Election Day.
In one sense, the DOJ can afford to conduct its case in a bottom-up, step-by-step, slow-and-steady method, because it has more time. The House select committee needs to be open. It needs to shoot straight for the top. It needs to move quickly. Because anything that committee needs to say has to be said before November, when Republicans could possibly take it over and either destroy it or turn it into a weekly prime-time presentation in defense of Trump’s Big Lie, complete with select showings from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
The DOJ has essentially twice as much time to make its case—though should they get to 2024 and declare that the investigation was on hold because of the election year, they could be facing a whole new kind of riot.
It’s hard to pretend there was anything good about Comey’s asinine, I-know-better-than-everyone decision to vomit all over the 2016 election in a perversion of “openness.” But if there is anything that Merrick Garland could do to make the current situation better, it would simply be to open the door a crack—let us know that the Department of Justice is working Jan. 6 as a whole, and not just dealing with some trespassing here, a conspiracy to commit fraud there, as if none of these crimes were part of a larger plan.
What’s still missing is just what Laura Clawson noted on Monday—a sense that Garland understands the scale and importance of these events. In 2016, even if it turned out that Hillary Clinton had screwed up her emails to the extent that critics alleged, it would have been nothing. A minor issue barely worthy of a wrist slap. In 2020, what happened was a direct threat to the existence of the United States.
It shouldn’t be treated like an ordinary investigation. Because it’s not.
Trump and his followers proved on Jan. 6 how dangerously close they came to overturning our democracy. Help cancel Republican voter suppression with the power of your pen by clicking here and signing up to volunteer with Vote Forward, writing personalized letters to targeted voters urging them to exercise their right to vote this year.