@polarberry I recommend reading this part of this post by @herukane :
Oh, on the element of the Judicial Department I really really, REALLY, have to strongly urge everyone here not to be upset about the slowness. Justice is not always swift. Not when it wants to be an ironclad case. This was part of the problem of TFG - everything he did was for show and so most of it was thrown away by the courts etc. Biden's administration - including Justice - is not that way. They take their time. They dot the i's and cross the t's. They make sure paperwork is filed correctly and organized properly. They add citations. They make sure all ducks are in a row. EVERYTHING is done in a way that makes so that when the courts look at it they can't, due to the clear reading of the law, give anything but the proper answer - even if they wanted to.
This is why the Biden administration has had victory after victory.
When it goes towards the insurrection and such things they start at the bottom and work their way up. This way that the cases get built upon each other.
Not to be that guy but when it comes to justice what is a year. There have been murder convictions for crimes committed decades before. A year is nothing. Let them do it right.
That said I get politics. I get that for that world a year is a looooooooooooooooong time. Its why the sausage making of law annoys so many people...Everything is done slow and steady, is done with procedural expertise, and is done at the proper time an in the proper place.
Swift justice is not thorough, and thorough justice is not swift.
I saw that, tgraf66, thanks for posting, and it is 100% correct. Ironclad cases against all treasonweasels is a must. No room for error.
Problem is, all that only applies if justice is actually being pursued.
I pray that it is.
Also, what is or isn't going on behind the scenes at the DOJ is separate from Bannon, imo. Subpoena denied. Enact the consequences without delay, like the rethugs would do if the situation were reversed.
Also, what is or isn't going on behind the scenes at the DOJ is separate from Bannon, imo. Subpoena denied. Enact the consequences without delay, like the rethugs would do if the situation were reversed.
Yes, the subpoena refusal is a separate issue, but whether we like it or not, if we are to claim "rule of law", there is a procedure that must be followed, and it *is* being followed. The committee referred it to the the full House, the house voted to refer it as a criminal charge to the DOJ, and the DOJ is completing it's part before proceeding.
Why follow all those procedures instead of just arresting him and jailing him until he testifies? Because this isn't about trying to force him to testify; the committee doesn't actually need his testimony, and Rep Schiff has already said that Bannon would likely have lied to them anyway, so his testimony is immaterial. No, this is about punishment and sending a message to any others who might think refusing a subpoena is a good idea. And it's working. Several others who were instructed by TFG not to testify have been defying him and cooperating with the committee.
In addition, by refusing to obey the subpoena he committed a federal felony, and that must be indicted and prosecuted by the DOJ. It will happen, but no prosecutor worth his salt is going to go in front of any jury - grand or otherwise - with anything but an irrefutable, t's crossed, i's dotted case that - as @harukane said - can only be decided one way. Federal prosecutors have a 96% conviction rate, and they didn't get that by rushing into courtrooms.
Makes sense, and I very much hope you are right.
Here's what I see. The DOJ has Bannon dead to rights on the subpoena charge. He knows it and they know it. That is 100% provable, prosecutable, and he will go to prison for it. What they didn't have - and maybe still don't yet - is concrete proof that he was directly involved in the criminal conspiracy to plan and orchestrate the insurrection. They backed him into a corner on the subpoena charge knowing full well what he would do, he did it (or didn't, as the case may be), so now he will go to prison, full stop.
Prosecutorial discretion is a thing. Prosecutors at all levels can decide whether and/or when to press charges on any crime depending on how strong they think the case is. Since they know they have him exactly where they want him with an irrefutably provable criminal charge that he can't escape, now they are in the process of gathering the evidence to indict him on the conspiracy/sedition charges. If they can get enough other testimony and evidence from other sources to feel that they can solidly prove those in court, they can either add those charges to the evading the subpoena charge, or put the subpoena thing on the back burner while the other case is prosecuted.
That way, even if for some bizarre reason they can't make the conspiracy charges stick in court, he can still be prosecuted for the subpoena thing and he will still go to prison.
From your lips to God's ears.
I'm not naive, just impatient. I know how crucially important it is for prosecutors to have all their ducks in a row and leave no gaps. It's been four years of rethug bs, only this time they stopped hiding their true colors.