House Judiciary votes to hold Garland in contempt
Source: The Hill
05/16/24 2:45 PM ET
The House Judiciary Committee on Thursday advanced a measure to hold in contempt Attorney General Merrick Garland in an 18-15 party line vote, a step Republicans on the House Oversight panel are also expected to take later this evening.
A last-minute move from President Biden to claim executive privilege over audio recordings from his interview with special counsel Robert Hur did not dissuade the GOP from proceeding, even as Garland said those asserting the privilege “cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”
Republicans already have the transcript of Hur’s conversation with Biden, but they argue the audio recordings will be more revealing, suggesting pauses could speak to Hur’s commentary about the president’s cognitive functions of show a hesitancy to ask questions.
To Democrats, the only rationale for seeking the tapes is so the GOP can use them in campaign commercials, arguing they are misusing power purely for political gain.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4668654-house-judiciary-votes-to-hold-garland-in-contempt/
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Seriously.
THIS was unprecedented.
And in fact, it wasn't just him but a whole cadre of wannabes who did what they did for their own selfish reasons. Fani Willis in GA captured it as a RICO case (where AZ is catching up to doing the same).
Most of the crimes were committed IN THE STATES AND IN VIOLATION OF STATE LAW. It took HOW LONG for the states that had STATE LAWS regarding how to handle Electors, to finally stop pointing the finger at someone else and DO THEIR FUCKING JOBS? In some cases like AZ & MI, the criminality happened during a period of GOP control. In GA, they actually had and still have a state under full GOP control but with some election officials not amenable to "shake downs".
STATES run the mechanics of their elections, NOT the federal government (whose role is limited to 4 Constitutional Amendments dealing with the franchise, some Voting Rights Act issues, and a handful of election-related laws that Congress passed (e.g., "Motor Voter", "HAVA", etc)).
All of these opinion pieces whining and essentially displaying "Garland Derangement Syndrome", are like Monday morning quarterbacking - you've seen "the tape" and know the end result, so now you try to go back in time and ignore what little was known THEN and idiotically proclaim that the crime should have been stopped before it happened, where it happened under the previous GOP administration.
The "caution" part should be assumed because look at what the hell is happening now with various 45 trials (both civil and criminal) where they have resulted in an endless series of appeals and appeals. You throw caution to the wind and you get your case thrown out or reversed. You try to dot every "i" and cross every "t" and you have less chance for a dismissal but you might still deal with lengthy delays when someone with a deep pocket is fighting for their own "due process", tooth and nail.
The whole argument from people who seem to not understand how the federal government operates and "Civics 101" (and yes I have had to deal with DOJ in my agency because MOST agencies are "regulatory" and not "enforcement" so if we needed an injunction or TRO or seizure, we had to go to DOJ to file in court for us), is that he "intentionally sat back and did "nothing".
So then when evidence is presented about what WAS done, literally right after he was confirmed, the goal posts get moved.
Got it.
In order for my agency to get some kind of legal warrant or court order against our regulated industry, we had to do a shit-load of work (at the program staff level), to gather the evidence (paperwork from investigations/inspections, photos, physical samples, lab analysis results, etc)., and then write up the reports about that, and then pass those on to our Compliance office who would take that info and tie it to some statute or statutes that applied to our agency, that is/are believed to have been violated, and then those folks handed it off to the agency's lawyers for final review, where they added the legalize where necessary, and THEN it got sent over ( " referral" ) to DOJ, using THEIR provided docket "template". At that point, it got assigned to someone at the local U.S. Attorney's office who would review and approve or ask for more if necessary, and once it was all good, they would file in court.
In the circumstance of what happened on January 6, 2021 - the responsible party was the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who has been handling the J6 cases because the "crimes" happened within their jurisdiction. The Attorney General is NOT micromanaging these cases and personally showing up in court to argue them. There are 115,000 employees in DOJ with multiple agencies - some of which have NOTHING to do with January 6.
I have posted this org chart over and over and it just doesn't seem burst the diamond bubble and sink in -
The U.S. Attorney General manages ALL of that, not just what DU wants them to manage. There are 93 U.S. Attorney Offices around the country and each of them had a 45-employee in there that had to be replaced. Even in 2024, a few are STILL not replaced. The fact that some of 45's crimes were found to have happened across multiple states meant the involvement of multiple U.S. Attorneys, and on and on, which is why it has even taken so long to still get many of the low-hanging fruit who burst into and trashed the U.S. Capitol because they reside in OTHER places outside of D.C., so those U.S. Attorneys where they live are responsible for investigating, finding, and arresting those individuals, and that even includes people like Gholiani and the Kraken crew - none of them living in D.C. As it was, 45 moved his residence to FL while he was still in office, which meant THAT U.S. Attorney had some input.
This is all the "missing info" regarding what is actually going on "behind the scenes", that people keep filling in with bullshit, and it makes DUers look like a bunch of idiots.
is that IMHO, these Department and Agency heads are nothing more than figure-heads. I get pummeled for saying it but after serving under 6 Presidents, I have seen piles of them come and go. They are appointees who are expected to "manage" their assigned Department/Agency but they are not "permanent", and will be gone - either before a President's term is up, or once a President's term is up (unless a new administration re-nominates them for the job), and replaced by someone else.
DUers were heartened to finally see the cannabis rescheduling process take a big step forward when DEA submitted their Rule to get the process going - Justice Department Submits Proposed Regulation to Reschedule Marijuana.
Guess who was "in charge" of that?
DU's Devil incarnate (yes DEA is UNDER DOJ)! 
With respect to January 6, you can't willy nilly do a Gymsuit Jordan and throw subpoenas around, guaranteeing a failure if you don't have a legitimate investigative path and probable cause. And with this happening upon transition to a new admiistration - and people might recall how 45 made sure his GSA head BLOCKED and DELAYED the transition, anyone in the nascent Biden administration had to deal with continued headwinds with hundreds of 45-appointees still in place needing to be removed and replaced, where the Actings can do some things but not others (legally).
We should be glad that Biden was basically "born and raised" in government and was ready (as much as could be) to start overturning the crap that 45 put in place, "on day one". BUT he still had to get his selected appointees confirmed with a newly-won Senate semi-controlled by Democrats because fucking Turtle BATTLED for that first month - January 2021 - to come up with an "agreement" with Schumer about who controlled what because the Senate then had a "tie" of representation.
However due to a Democratic President and Vice President, that meant that Democrats could "break the tie" and thus had control of the Senate, but it was a nightmare to get there, get the new Democratic party Chairs seated, and make sure the new Senate Rules were put in place. 
notably those who have done "prosecutions", is that they try to do what they do in order to "get a conviction". And to do that, you have to have a helluva lot "behind the scenes" work.
I got called for jury duty last month here in Philly and ended up on a criminal trial that was thankfully short (2 days). It was a case where the Assistant D.A. presented what was a weak case, where the physical evidence was incomplete - with follow-up testing not done and issues with chain of custody, etc., plus a theory regarding the defendant's guilt based on a circumstantial situation, and a wild leap to get the charges. As soon as the closing arguments were done and we went back to the jury room, we literally acquitted the guy in less than 5 minutes (and waited before notifying the court due to some of the jurors needing to go to the restroom).
We laugh about all the suits that 45 and his GOP loon AGs continually file and LOSE because most of it is frivolous. But we don't want our side to lose and that means it takes time to get as solid a case as one can. As it is, for the first time in years, DOJ managed to get the extremely rare conviction for a "Seditious Conspiracy" charge, not just once but multiple times.
I think we are unfortunately being "drowned" in a negative media narrative that gets parroted here, to the point where the propagandists have made people think that Biden didn't really win 2020 and thus he "won't win again". 
That's how crazy it's gotten. 
