Yesterday, I errantly stated the following:
The message is clear- you torture people and then destroy the evidence, and you get off without so much as a sternly worded letter.
If you are a whistle blower outlining criminal behavior by the government, you get prosecuted.
I was running under the assumption that the leaks Drake was accused of making were the NYT/wiretapping stuff. It turns out it was this:
But the description applies to articles written by Siobhan Gorman, then a reporter for The Baltimore Sun, that examined in detail the failings of several major N.S.A. programs, costing billions of dollars, using computers to collect and sort electronic intelligence. The efforts were plagued with technical flaws and cost overruns.
Commenter Stuck says the following:
This is mismanagement, and has nothing to do with civil liberties as such. Second, as I stated in my first comment, GG, an experienced lawyer uses the term “Whitleblower” a legal term for people who follow whistle blower laws. This guy leaked classified info to a reporter just like Libby with Plame, and as far as we know, didn’t go to congress first and follow the law. That may sound like splitting hairs, but it would be another kettle of fish if Obama was prosecuting an actual Whistleblower, or punishing them in any way, as opposed to prosecuting a guy who broke his oath and the law, and was too stupid to cover his tracks.
That’s the defense? This is even worse- they are now throwing the full weight of the government into the prosecution of a man who… embarrassed them.
I simply don’t understand why people do not see the problem here. We are told we have to move forward, and we can not look backward, and we have to ignore the criminal and immoral behavior of those who served in roles in the last administration for the good of the country. We have to overlook illegal and secretive wiretapping, we have to overlook the institution of a torture regime, it would be wrong to go back and prosecute those leaders who engaged in all of these things, lied to Congress, and covered up their behavior.
On the other hand, some guy who embarrassed us? Fuck him- we’ll go after him with guns a blazing. No concerns about looking backward there. No need to move forward on this one. We’ll bring the whole weight of the government down on this guy.
Mind you- I have no problem prosecuting leakers. None. My problem is the disparate application of “justice.” The powerful and the elites consistently avoid any scrutiny or face any prosecution for their crimes and misdeeds, but those lower down the rung are vigorously prosecuted. Had there been a widespread effort to investigate and prosecute the crimes of the Bush administration, I would have said nothing about Drake. It is the inconsistent application of the law that infuriates me.
How many days in court or jail did the people who codified into policy what happened at Abu Ghraib spend? None? Yet Charles Graner is still rotting in jail? Few bad apples, dontcha know!
Banksters rob billions, military contracters rob billions, and on and on and on, and nothing is done. But the little guys get this:
A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Roy Brown, 54, robbed the Capital One bank in Shreveport, Louisiana in December 2007. He approached the teller with one of his hands under his jacket and told her that it was a robbery.
I just don’t get how anyone can support the prosecution of Drake when no one else has been held accountable for their behavior during the Bush years.
Bill
Life isn’t fair.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
And a top of the morn to you senor Cole.
Oh please. This wasn’t a defense of anything. It was a bogus comparison you and GG make, as you just state a few sentences down, you don’t have a problem with prosecuting leakers. And you still won’t acknowledge that BUSH’S TORTURE REGIME IS BEING INVESTIGATED AS WE SPEAK. And Abu Graib has nothing to do with Obama.
Fine then, lets not prosecute anyone for any crime till Bush and Cheney are behind bars. Christ, you are beginning to sound just like your hysterical friend Greenwald.
On a positive note, I finally made the big time front page at BJ. Though not in the best of light. But that’s ok.
John Cole
Because that is exactly what I said.
And you are starting to sound as stupid as Mike Kay.
Nash
@Bill:
These days, it’s worse than unfair. Life is rigged.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@John Cole: LOL
You big meany
Launches paper airplane across class room.
Ugh
Word
Bill E Pilgrim
This is precisely the argument against “let’s look forward, not back”. Anything else you do is hypocritical once you decide to just ignore what was clearly illegal behavior.
I would think that no small part of why they’re not pursing this is that they don’t want to open the door to the Wingnuts coming after them after they leave office, with trumped up charges that they claim match what Bushco did, just as tit for tat. As someone once told me, a prosecutor can prosecute a ham sandwich if one really wants to. The laws are actually heavily titled in favor of the authorities, despite the Hollywood “judges hampered by liberal laws letting people off on technicalities” schtick.
What’s crazy about that particular thinking however is imagining that this crop of right wingers would somehow not do that anyway, because someone was nice to them and didn’t prosecute.
Sometimes it’s like watching people trying to raise a dog that’s clearly got rabies, with all of the signs, foaming at the mouth, snarling, stumbling around wildly, and they keep trying to just talk to it and pet it, hoping that will be all it takes.
c u n d gulag
The little guy has to suffer, because those above him “ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL!”
What’s that smell?
Don’t you smell that smell?
It’s the stink left by the rotting corpse of The Constitution, killed by the right, and then buried by the Democrat’s.
Linda Featheringill
Yes. The little theives receive harsh prison sentences and the big theives get away with highway robbery. Right? No. The way things are? Frequently.
But that doesn’t mean we should stop complaining or stop demanding justice or stop demanding the truth.
One of our problems with the crimes/sins/atrocities of the Bush years is that we apparently don’t want to imprison former presidents and vice presidents. And everyone else involved was just small potatoes in comparison. What are we going to do?
I don’t mean for this to be a defense of the fatcats, the big wheels, the upper crust. I mean to point out a few bits of reality to set up the following question:
Is this the way we want to spend our time and energy? Going after the people who did such horrid things in the past?
If one chose to devote his/her life to gaining some justice for those events, that would be a valid choice. HOWEVER, I think we need to look at our options and make a CONSCIOUS DECISION about how we want to spend our resources.
You can’t do everything. You have to pick and choose.
[And hugs for John, with rubbing and purring. We love you anyway.]
Uloborus
‘Look forward, not backwards’ means exactly one thing. Don’t start a series of prosecutions that will end up with Bush and Cheney. The idea is, presumably, that you can have your HCR and your financial reform and your stimulus, OR you can have Bush and Cheney prosecuted. They probably won’t be convicted, since you’ll be summoning up a gigantic hornets nest in the process. The American public will freak, because this will justify to them the Right’s craziness. The Democrats will run around like chickens with their heads cut off. And assuming Bush and Cheney are convicted it will have precisely squat effect on future presidents. If they’re crazy enough to do this crap anyway, they’re crazy enough to think they’re untouchable. This ain’t case law, and precedent actually isn’t that important.
So, which do you want? And in what way, shape, or form does this have anything to do with prosecuting anyone else for any reason?
electricgrendel
“I just don’t get how anyone can support the prosecution of Drake when no one else has been held accountable for their behavior during the Bush years.”
It’s called hypocrisy and it’s as American as apple pie.
electricgrendel
“I just don’t get how anyone can support the prosecution of Drake when no one else has been held accountable for their behavior during the Bush years.”
It’s called hypocrisy and it’s as American as apple pie.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Uloborus:
Okay, I tell you what. Health care reform was passed. Financial reform is next, and when that’s passed, we can consider that stimulus already happened, a second stimulus wasn’t likely anyway, and so at that point we’re free to go for it.
One of Barack Obama’s answers about John McCain’s suspending his campaign stunt was “Presidents can tackle more than one thing at a time”.
I find the argument that looking into illegal acts would automatically bring every other effort to a complete standstill to be unconvincing to say the least.
And if you mean “because the Republicans would get mad and maybe not cooperate” please don’t make me laugh. You only need to look at the letter every single one of them signed yesterday, in lockstep with what’s an obvious lie.
SGEW
@John Cole: Ouch.
More seriously, tho’, I feel the urge to raise a point in Stuck’s defense.
Something that has been raised by various Justice department watchers is that the inconsistency in prosecution and investigation (i.e., Garner and Drake are prosecuted, but John Yoo and Dick Cheney are not) is not so much based on political motivations, but the disparate procedural difficulties of a successful prosecution and conviction. From a prosecutor’s viewpoint, it’s simply easier to nail the little guys: they’re the ones who have their fingers in the till, and the prosecution has photos to prove it (literally, in Garner’s case); meanwhile, the individuals who instigated the crimes were careful enough to leave few legally relevant fingerprints on their criminal violations, and, in some cases, covered their tracks. Prosecutors are loathe to start an investigation that looks unlikely to result in a successful conviction.
It’s not a tremendously persuasive argument, for me. And, as one might have noticed, I tend to be more on Greenwald’s side of the “is Obama’s Justice department a failure?” debate. But it is a reasonable explanation for the disparate treatment that doesn’t necessarily rely on hypocrisy, cowardice, or other inherently suspect motivations.
Petesmom
“as far as we know, didn’t go to congress first and follow the law.”
Except, he was given the name of the reporter by a congressional aide. Per TPM Muckraker, “The indictment alleges that NSA senior executive Thomas Drake was connected to the reporter via a mutual friend who was a congressional staffer.”
GReynoldsCT00
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
No spitball??
John did you not sleep well last night? you’re frisky fresh out of the gate this morning
arguingwithsignposts
Roy Brown sounds like some book from a french guy that was made into a musical. Why, yes, I think I remember it now: Who am I?
Barry
@Uloborus:
“So, which do you want? And in what way, shape, or form does this have anything to do with prosecuting anyone else for any reason”
Because it clearly states that illegal acts committed with the support of higher authorties will not be punished [1].
If you can’t figure out why this is a Bad Thing, you really need to retake high school civics.
[1] Exceptions for the occasional very, very low-level schmuck when pictures leak out.
Tim I
@John Cole:
You need to take a break from reading Greenwald. He’s getting into your head. His kind of paranoia is contagious. For the love of God, go read some Krauthammer – maybe a collection of columns from the early oughts.
That will fix you right up!
WereBear
Despite my feeling that there is some evidence that the present administration was correct about not jumping into prosecutions right away, I do feel this is not a long term excuse.
Part of it the problem, as I understand it, is that there is no smoking gun with the war on Iraq. They can claim they followed intelligence that turned out to be faulty, and whoopsie! I do think this wiggle room is not there with torture, though… and that has to be addressed.
Though if it does make it to the Supreme Court; (and it would kinda hafta,) well, can anyone imagine what the Court would do at this point in time?
We haven’t lost any of the really crazy ones yet.
Of course it’s all rigged. That has been the plan since Goldwater lost, and like all evil plans, it was going really well, right up to the end, there, where it turns out running a country according to an evil plan makes everything fall down and disintegrate.
But the answer is to go back to principles; they can make a lot of noise and throw chaff in the air, but it has finally reached the point where it is ridiculous to the layman.
For the first time, the news outlets report something in a positive light; but people say to me, “I don’t know that doesn’t seem right,” and I practically slobber over them, agreeing with them.
That’s big.
Third Eye Open
On the Republic’s headstone, it will read: Killed by “Political Reality”
Perhaps the American public as a whole, mirrored by its Free Press(r), just never really cared about being introspective. Politics is like a beauty pageant: We want to see something well quaffed, smiling and capable of looking adorable while they say stupid shit…
Detlef
If you don´t want to investigate and prosecute maybe you should stop publishing the yearly State Department “Human Rights Report”?
Because the promotion of human rights is an important national interest, the United States seeks to:
* Hold governments accountable to their obligations under universal human rights norms and international human rights instruments;
* Promote greater respect for human rights, including freedom from torture, freedom of expression, press freedom, women’s rights, children’s rights, and the protection of minorities;
* Promote the rule of law, seek accountability, and change cultures of impunity;
It seems a bit ridiculous that the USA judges 190+ countries around the world on human rights conditions.
With one exception of course, the USA itself.
RP
Because that is exactly what I said.
That is exactly what you said. I just don’t see what Drake has to do with Bush, Cheney and torture.
WereBear
@Third Eye Open: It’s a ninety-ninth percentile problem, and it always will be.
I learned to read at three, and never stopped. So I showed up in first grade, aghast that they gave me books with no words in them, and while the whole prodigy thing had been covered with glory up to that time, it began to suck when I entered the wider world.
Everything in our civilization was made possible by those whose achievements, in various areas, are in the 99th percentile of that particular ability. (My verbal is good; my math less so, and my cooking is pretty uneven.) And everything worthwhile in civilization was fought, tooth and nail, by the rest of the species.
So if one is aware of how politics works, AND has a humanitarian goal in mind; one is pretty much resigned to shouting into the wilderness. Especially after decades of innovation and security that today’s oldsters assumed came with the territory; and do not think can be dismantled.
They are utterly wrong, of course, but it was NotThinking that got them into this… and NotThinking will keep them there.
AhabTRuler
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: I found your legalistic parsing of the meaning of “whistleblower” to be unconvincing, but as I was at work, I was unable to research the term or respond capably.
Turns out that “whistleblower” is a fairly generic term that fits quite well in this situation.
Norman Rogers
Now, please understand that one aspect of the mismanagement involved here centered around a thing called “Groundbreaker” and it was the wholesale destruction of the IT infrastructure of a certain agency, which was then replaced with hundreds of overpaid “retired in place” contractors under the moniker “Eagle Alliance,” which, to this day is more aptly referred to as “evil alliance.”
The millions wasted on Groundbreaker are a fundamental embarrassment to who? Michael Hayden.
In effect, you have an Obama Justice Department protecting the professional reputation of said Michael Hayden, a man not worthy of being retained or considered for higher position. A man replaced by Leon Panetta, of all people.
When you track down where all that money went, look to the enriched suburbs of Washington DC.
The Other Steve
Yeah, but…
Now he has a home. That may have been the whole point behind the move.
Third Eye Open
@WereBear: Yeah, I had a lot of good friends in journalism who like to repeat the , “lowest common denominator” line while they decry the intellectual heft of their papers. I have also been chided by political science professors for trying to disturb the proper model of information maker>>information distributor>>information consumer. I am looked upon as if I were a heretic for believing that a model which requires a small group of gatekeepers to be responsible for the vast majority of the information consumers, is not only stupid, but dangerous. Same as it ever was, huh?
HRA
I think it’s necessary to stop and look back at what happened in other instances of leaks which were of potential harm and the attempted impeachment of Bill Clinton.
The Pentagon Papers come to mind in the first instance. Even though I would have to go get familiarized with them, I am sure they caused a big problem for the government then.
Certainly, I do remember the Clinton impeachment quite well. It should be something everyone does not want to have repeated. As much as I would love to see Cheney pay for his alleged criminal activities, I don’t want to see the circus that surrounded Clinton again.
I understand there is more necessary work this administration wants to accomplish without the eye taken off of the game plan. That’s why I voted for Obama.
Adam Collyer
You’re not alone in feeling this way, John. In fact, you could devote an entire blog (24 hours/day, 365/year) to discussing the disparate application of justice. The real problem is that the disparate application of justice has been ongoing since literally the beginning of the American judicial system. This country has disparately administered justice on the basis of race and poverty for quite some time – forty four presidents. Mostly, it’s not within the reach of the president at all.
The United States has structural (mostly social) issues in it’s application of justice. On one hand, it’s difficult for people who look like the defendant and empathize with him (rich, poor, black, white, etc.) to convict. Mostly though, it comes down to resources. Being a government criminal lawyer just doesn’t pay well and law school and life tend to get pretty expensive. At least being a prosecutor has a certain prestige attached to it and can move your career path in the direction of more money. It’s hard to find good public defenders, and those that do exist are woefully overworked.
The bottom line is that it’s fair to be upset over the general concept of disparate administration of justice. I just don’t think it’s implicating the Obama administration to do so. And while the story about the gentleman from Louisiana is pretty horrifying, that seems to have occurred in state court (feel free to correct me on that, though).
The point Stuck makes above is fair – you suggested that, theoretically, we shouldn’t support Drake’s prosecution without having held the previous administration accountable for their crimes. Why is that different that suggesting that we should not support federal prosecutions until we hold the Bush years accountable? For the record, I’d like to know much more about this case before deciding, but in theory I’ll support Drake’s prosecution if he deserves to be prosecuted. That’s the true administration of justice. His prosecution is not, cannot, and should not be related to anyone else’s.
@SGEW:
Here’s why it can be a persuasive argument to me – large scale investigations cost a tremendous amount of time and money. Additionally, the prosecution has a heavy burden to bear, particularly in criminal cases. Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is difficult, which is why prosecutorial discretion is important. And though it may appear that the justice system is heavily tilted toward prosecutors, often times the reason that a prosecutor’s conviction numbers are inflated is because he/she chose not to prosecute cases where they believed that they would be wasting resources while not obtaining a conviction. Prosecutorial discretion works hand-in-hand with “innocent until proven guilty”/prosecutorial burdens.
WereBear
@Third Eye Open: Yup, one of the rare instances where it sucks to be smart.
However, I know most people can grasp the concepts (it truly isn’t rocket science) if they make the connection about how it impacts their actual lives.
It is part of the con artistry to claim special knowledge, like the banks saying their bonus system is to keep “talent.”
Geez, if you’re cheating, anyone can do that. That’s why they call it cheating!
Third Eye Open
@WereBear: Dems are a party of nuance, but Americans don’t do nuance. So…do you force your caucus to march lock-step with a single sheet of pithy talking points, or do you try to educate? Or, is there a hybrid of both of those options that somehow shakes people out of their self-imposed blinders?
This is why I can’t read American Theocracy anymore, it causes my blood to boil. I think I am going to start writing my view of the decline of America. I only hope that the Chinese have an editor with a good grasp of early 21st century Americanese…
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
@Adam Collyer:
Many moons ago a lawyer bud and I were out drinking. He was a public defender at the time and we were discussing various legal topics. One thing he said that stuck with me was that most career prosecutors don’t really care if someone is guilty or not. All that matters to them is if the accused can be convicted, a win is a win and that is all they are looking for. The more wins the better to pad their track record.
That’s why you hear of so many people who are wrongly convicted, even when there was evidence that could have proven their guilt. The rules governing courtroom procedure virtually assure us that this will happen.
The case in LA is a slam dunk for a prosecutor and they will take those kinds of cases all day long if they can get them. They are easy and great for padding the win/loss record. The crimes of those in the financial markets and former administration are not slam dunks, they are nightmares that could end careers if not handled properly.
This is the system as it stands and faulting one person, or even a group of persons, for it being this way is being so simplistic about it that it’s stupid.
WereBear
Just one correction; they are not self-imposed. Or I should say, they are now.
I am uncomfortably aware of how certain flavors of upbringing, notably authoritarian ones, simply crush all hope and initiative out of people at such an early age they are not even aware of it.
It can be reawakened by a charismatic leader, which is how Obama became President. But he can’t carry it alone; that’s why Grayson’s success, both in messaging and money-gathering, will lead to imitation.
Early days yet in this complete revamp of the social structure!
bystander
Well said, Sir Cole.
And, in a nutshell, that’s the problem with the whole state secrets nexus. Recall United States v. Reynolds:
It’s too easy to invoke to hide those things which would otherwise be embarrassing to the government.
I think this sums up the situation facing folks like Drake face pretty well.
tim
John, I agree with you on this completely, but…sadly it has ever thus been so.
It is only in the last ten years that my naive 53 year old eyes have opened to just how inequitable is the application of law in this country. So Inequitable as to render most prosecutions of crime in the U.S. meaningless.
Adam Collyer
@DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal):
I certainly agree with this. I was lucky enough to be in a small group presentation made by Stephen Bright. My description of him could never do him justice, so I’ll just link his Wikipedia entry (which also hardly does him justice). Suffice to say that this is a gentleman who knows all about the disparate administration of justice (especially the death penalty) along racial and economic lines. You can literally hear the frustration in his voice when talking about the system – a system he’s been fighting hard to improve for decades. If we had more Stephen Brights, the world would be a better place.
That said, I think some of what your friend says has some merit. Prosecutor’s absolutely care about their win-loss record, and much of that has to do with the way the promotion system functions. But beyond that, my experience with prosecutors and aspiring prosecutors has given me the distinct impression that it’s not specifically about wins. The prosecutor mentality is a very distinct worldview. To be a prosecutor, you have to believe in what you’re doing. You have to believe in the guilt of the defendant, otherwise your wishy-washy personality shows very clearly in either plea negotiations or at trial. That’s not to say that everyone they try is guilty; rather, prosecutor’s look at evidence and are immediately leaning toward guilt and motive rather than innocence and possibility. It can be a very black/white game, rather than shades of grey.
That being said, I think the rules of court room procedure can be very complicated and happen to differ between judges. Whether the judge is a former prosecutor or defense attorney matters, and in the end, the burden falls on the prosecution to prove the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense doesn’t even have to present a case at all if the prosecutor hasn’t fulfilled his burden. Not that it happens often (or at all, for that matter), but the adversary system and it’s procedures are incredibly complex.
batgirl
@Bill E Pilgrim: It’s not the Republicans you need to be worried about. It is the feckless Democrats that think they live in a center-right nation.
Let’s be realists. It would be hard enough for the White House to go after the crimes of Bushco with the Democrats on his side. How long do you think it would be before the Democratic party joined the GOP in denunciations of Obama?
Fuck, it doesn’t mean I like it or support it. It is what it is. I want to see those fuckers punished. It ain’t going to happen.
The real fight is the writing of history. Will they go down as one of the biggest criminal gangs that dismantled the Constitution and murdered countless men and women, American and foreign, for greed and power? Will history recognize that the US was a country that practiced torture? This is the game Cheney et al are playing now.
If you really want to see a prosecution your target shouldn’t be Obama. It should be your family, your neighbors, and strangers on the street. Unless there is a rallying cry from we the people to pursue prosecution it just ain’t going to happen. We the people don’t want it.
For once, I wish both those on the right and left would stop blaming our leaders and politicians for our failings.
DBrown
@Linda Featheringill: Yes but you miss THE point – a truth commission; give asswipe bush a free get-out-of-jail (but only if he does not lie) and get to the bottom of the mess. Many countries do this; other key people can be given different levels depending on what you want to find – generally, it is top to bottom. Get all the dirt out into the light and move on. Victums can be give $$$ to help correct the horror. Otherwise, this type of crime being covered up is worse than going after asswipe and his ass licking friend bloody hands cheney or just moving on without knowing who did what and to who.
Brien Jackson
I think one thing that should also be considered is that, while “sending a message to officials” sounds good, you might not be sending the message you want. If Yoo & Co. get put on trial and acquitted, the message is just as likely to be “if you do something horrible, immediately turn it into a partisan political issue and get your partisans firmly behind you so that you’ll never be convicted.”
Uloborus
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Naah, I completely agree about both arguments. I don’t depend on them at all. I especially agree that trying to get cooperation from the Republican congress is going to be useless. If Jesus descended from heaven and explained that he’d convinced Obama to remove all gun restrictions, the Republican congress would vote against it.
But over the last year we’ve watched the Democrats in congress shakily stand up and try and legislate again for the first time in 8 years. I have no idea why it was so hard, but apparently it was. We’re still holding our breath that they won’t start sitting around and crying about how hard it is again, aren’t we?
That would not have happened if Obama had made an obvious push to prosecute Bush and Cheney. For reasons I also don’t understand, large portions of the Democratic congress really don’t want it to happen, and have dug in against it since the idea was first raised. So you’ve pissed them off, and they’re not going to cooperate with the party getting back on its feet.
That’s bad enough, but one of the big reasons the Dems are growing a spine is that the hyper-partisanship of the Republicans is driving moderates away from the GOP in droves. Remember, these moderates don’t care about or understand policy. They didn’t see a problem with Bush until the results of his policies came in, if then. They just hate that the Republicans are acting like children and throwing around accusations even Joe Moron knows are lies. To these people, prosecuting Bush/Cheney looks just exactly as partisan. The Democrats stop looking like the party of adults and the GOP’s accusations start to make sense.
I firmly believe that if Obama had pushed for a Bush/Cheney prosecution, and any serious prosecution of crimes under their administration would lead straight to them, we would not have HCR and the Republicans would not be on the verge of teabagging themselves to death. And really, what would it do? It’d be satisfying to lock Cheney up for the thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of murders he’s committed out of pride, or Bush for wiping his ass on the Constitution. But it wouldn’t stop a future president. If Nixon had been put in jail, would Cheney have hesitated a second? The sentences you’re looking for are ‘I’m smarter than he is. I won’t get caught.’ and ‘No one will want to prosecute me once they see I was right.’
burnspbesq
JC:
“I have no problem prosecuting leakers.”
Also JC:
“I just don’t get how anyone can support the prosecution of Drake when no one else has been held accountable for their behavior during the Bush years.”
I believe the more charitable word that describes these two statements is “irreconcilable.”
I could launch into a lengthy explanation of the difficulties and risks associated with the prosecutions y’all would like to see, but y’all either don’t believe it (which makes you ignorant) or don’t care (which makes you spoiled children).
Instead, I will remind you of two things.
1. Good investigative work – the kind that builds winnable cases – takes time. Surely it was not lost on anyone that the civil action that was filed by the SEC yesterday against Goldman involves action alleged to have taken place in 2007.
2. The work of Federal grand juries is secret, by law. Government employees who violate the grand jury secrecy rules (Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure) are guilty of a felony. Targets obviously have no incentive to disclose that they are targets. There could be a multitude of investigations going on, and none of us would know it. So please, if you feel obligated to spout the “no prosecutions of big boys” line of bullshit, please be intellectually honest enough to label it as what it is – a wild-ass guess.
Three-nineteen
@Brien Jackson:
Well, right now the message is “If you do something horrible, we’re not even going to look into it.” How is that better, exactly?
@burnspbesq:
It sounds like you think Holder is investigating top Bush officials on the sly, after repeated statements from him and Obama that the opposite is the case. If so, shouldn’t everyone who supports investigation keep yelling as loud as they can, so if they do get the info they need to indict, they can point to us for political cover?
These threads are just a long list of excuses for not doing the right thing, mostly relying on the excuse “political reality”. Let me remind you of a couple things:
Political reality 2007: Obama won’t win the Democratic nomination – Hillary is an inevitability.
Political reality 2009: Health care reform is dead in the water.
goatchowder
Because the law, in it’s majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.
slag
(I may be called a Colebot by saying this, but) This!
burnspbesq
@Three-nineteen:
Yes, absolutely. I’m happy to sing baritone in your chorus.
I don’t think I’m suggesting that Holder is doing anything on the sly (although I would be much happier if I could convince myself that all of the statements about no prosecutions were head-fakes).
What we do know is that United States Attorneys have considerable autonomy when it comes to choosing the cases they bring and the investigations they initiate.
cat48
It looks like Drake is being prosecuted for lying to the FBI and destroying evidence after he knew he was being investigated according to the charges listed at Justice Dpt website as most apply to obstruction. He’s not charged for leaking–just the coverup he tried to do after the FBI got involved. Sorta like Scooter’s lying.
Just Some Fuckhead
John, FDL called and wants its shrill back.