The Justice Department’s Knife Edge
8/11/22
In the aftermath of the FBI raid on Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago, political tensions — already high — have been amped up further. On one side, the raid has been taken as validation that Merrick Garland may actually be a man of his word. Despite prior claims that the Department’s investigations would “follow the facts wherever they lead,” and that “there cannot be different rules for the powerful and the powerless,” until the raid, the public has seen scant evidence backing up the rhetoric. On the other side, the raid has been seen as just one more example of governmental overreach by Democrats seeking to use governmental institutions to harm their chief political rival.
Merrick Garland is the man in the middle. Some see him as finally standing up for the rule of law, while others see him as politicizing a governmental agency. I see him as doing too little, too late.
Those singing Garland’s praises seem to be taking a victory lap, claiming to see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of holding Trump accountable for something. My own feeling is that that light should have been seen long ago. It started to glimmer when Trump initially demurred upon being questioned as to whether he would concede if defeated; but the light shown blindingly bright with Trump’s conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, asking him to find 11,799 votes. How or why the Justice Department has still not reacted to that one is unfathomable to me. In any case, the intensity of the light has increased even further with the January 6th Committees presentation of devastating testimony by diehard Republicans and White House insiders who’ve detailed Trump’s involvement in trying to overturn the election and his reluctance to take steps to quell the violence.
With all that we’ve come to know about Trump’s actions and inactions, it seems a little crazy to me that the first solid indication that the Justice Department is focusing on Trump as a person of interest comes in connection with his handling of government documents. Whatever the content of the materials that Trump has allegedly mishandled, the seriousness of that issue pales in comparison to the damage he’s wrought to our democracy from his lies about the election being rigged and the by-now-well-documented efforts he undertook to decertify and override the results of a presidential election.
Rather than feeling like we’re finally on the road to holding Trump accountable, I’m increasingly feeling like he may be able to delay his day of reckoning long enough, where, ultimately, he may end up being pardoned, giving lie to the notion that no man is above the law. As of yet, the Justice Department hasn’t protected us from this prospect. I hope it’s not too late for them to do so, but I fear it may be.
