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Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

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Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

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You are here: Home / Jan 6: Hearings / Jeffrey Clark’s home raided

Jeffrey Clark’s home raided

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Today’s January 6th committee hearing will focus on the role Trump DoJ official Jeffrey Clark played in the attempted coup. Yesterday, the feds raided Clark’s home, according to The New York Times:

Federal investigators descended on the home of Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, on Wednesday in connection with the department’s sprawling inquiry into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

It remained unclear exactly what the investigators may have been looking for, but Mr. Clark was central to President Donald J. Trump’s unsuccessful effort in late 2020 to strong-arm the nation’s top prosecutors into supporting his claims of election fraud.

Clark headed up the Trump DoJ’s civil division, and at one point after Tangerine Baal was forever branded a losing loser who lost, the im-POTUS was poised to make Clark acting AG to further the coup scheme.

As part of the putsch, Clark pressured Georgia Governor Kemp to call a special legislative session to create fake Trump electors to replace the slate certified after Biden won the state in 2020, citing unsubstantiated “concerns” about election integrity.

Lock him up!

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

137Comments

  5. 5.

    germy shoemangler

    Vought, says, "The new era of criminalizing politics is worsening in the US. Yesterday more than a dozen DOJ law enforcement officials searched Jeff Clark’s house in a pre-dawn raid, put him in the streets in his pajamas, & took his electronic devices…" 2/x

    — Carrie Johnson (@johnson_carrie) June 23, 2022

    Thanks to the guy who helped Trump cover up impeachment for the granular details about DOJ's seizure of Jeff Clark's phones. https://t.co/w5xGL8GxWv

    — emptywheel (@emptywheel) June 23, 2022

    I always enjoy the granular details when these guys are raided

  12. 12.

    West of the Rockies

    I hope Clark is afraid, embarrassed, enraged, in short, in cosmic misery.

    E.F.G.–“Tik-tok, MFs. “

  13. 13.

    Betty Cracker

    Here’s something that puzzles me: Trump supposedly abandoned the scheme to fire acting AG Rosen and replace him with Clark when other DOJ officials threatened to resign. It seems out of character for him to back down over that.

  14. 14.

    The Thin Black Duke

    There won’t be any more room to throw anybody else under the bus if this keeps up.

  15. 15.

    James E Powell

    Is Clark stupid enough that he didn’t torch everything long ago? Smash all the hard drives, destroy all the phones, burn everything, even the clothes he wore?

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker: I don’t think so.  He backs down when people stand up to him. Especially when those people would spoil his plot to overthrow the government by going public.

  17. 17.

    piratedan

    @Betty Cracker: seems out of character considering his “you’re fired!@” persona don’t it?

    waiting for additional shoes to start dropping, seems like there’s an entire Thom McCann’s hovering in the stratosphere.

  19. 19.

    germy shoemangler

    My name is Jeff Clark, hated by the Left.

    I’m a former Trump DOJ official who (like you) was concerned about the 2020 election.

    Now I’m one of the top targets of the politically motivated J6 Committee.

    Please Retweet & Follow me to show your support @JeffClarkUS

    God bless.

    — Jeff Clark (@JeffClarkUS) March 19, 2022

     
    He’s pissed:

    Now the House Oversight Cmte is investigating 's Dan Snyder. While inflation rages on, the border is uncontrolled, the debt is out of control, there are product shortages, etc. Private plaintiffs, the EEOC, & state little EEOCs can handle this. Not Congress' role. Politics.

    — Jeff Clark (@JeffClarkUS) June 22, 2022

  23. 23.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The never-ending calls for Garland to resign are looking more and more ridiculous, every day.

  24. 24.

    zhena gogolia

    It is like Watergate in that I can’t keep all the people distinct from each other. I really don’t even know who this guy is.

  26. 26.

    Jerzy Russian

    @phdesmond:  How about one of those huge “busses” they use at Dulles airport (or used, been forever since I have been there)?  Plenty of room underneath one of those.

  28. 28.

    piratedan

    @UncleEbeneezer: can understand them, I know it takes time to restaff a federal department with non-trumpies but as even MSNBC pundits have noted, some of this shit is just laying on the ground to be gathered and 18 months is a long damn time to go out and clean up ripened fruit.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    @trollhattan:

    DOJ guy who supported Trump’s plan for DOJ to call the election fraudulent.  Others at DOJ stopped them from putting the plan into effect.  The J6 hearing today will be about him, primarily.

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    @UncleEbeneezer: I know. They can’t give a little benefit of the doubt to the guy who got McVeigh. I loved Garland’s smile when he said they were all watching the hearings. It’s not a competition it’s a tag team

  36. 36.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jerzy Russian: Moscow used to have these enormous Hungarian articulated buses called Icarus I think. Probably still have them, stuck together with duct tape

  37. 37.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: Career guy or Trump appointee?

    I wonder if when vetting folks to work there, they’re required to define the term “justice.” Seems a foreign concept, like Weltanschauung or something.

  39. 39.

    J R in WV

    @germy shoemangler:

    Vought, says, “The new era of criminalizing politics is worsening in the US…”

    Yeah, the problem is that all the criminalization of politics was done by and on the orders of TFG, Orange Mango, Donald Trump Sr. Since he left office, all the work is on de-criminalization of politics by jailing the actual criminals. So fun to watch, so far.

    This guy is lucky he wears pajamas, I woulda been out there stark, needing no searching to see I wasn’t carrying a device. Maybe like baud?

  45. 45.

    germy shoemangler

    @Cameron:

    Does trump even drink coffee?

    He has so many people bringing him coffee but I don’t think he’s ever touched a drop.  He’s a diet soda guy.

  46. 46.

    The Moar You Know

    Is Clark stupid enough that he didn’t torch everything long ago? Smash all the hard drives, destroy all the phones, burn everything, even the clothes he wore?

    @James E Powell: over and over again you see this.  It’s not just him.  Criminals in general seem utterly unaware that the crimes they know they’ve committed will be prosecuted, and they take no steps to sanitize anything.

    Of course, if you DO “sanitize” (it’s called spoliation) and they catch you at it, there are sanctions.  The nastiest of which can be that the court can simply instruct the jury that since you wiped your stuff, everything that is alleged about your actions is to be taken as fact (Zubulake v. UBS).

    I might add from personal experience that it’s easy to catch people who have done this.  Few people have the knowledge to really pull it off and leave no traces.

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Good point — he definitely backs down when confronted. But I wonder if it wasn’t something more than a mere gaggle of fancy lawyers no one had ever heard of who made him reconsider. Like maybe being told Pence and cabinet members would invoke the 25th amendment or something like that.

  48. 48.

    germy shoemangler

    In one clip from an interview with Trump on March 2021 at Mar-a-Lago, the former President is asked directly about what happened on January 6.

    “Well, it was a sad day, but it was a day where there was great anger in our country, and people went to Washington primarily because they were angry with an election they think was rigged,” Trump said.

    “A very small portion, as you know, went down to the Capitol, and then a very small portion of them went in,” Trump continued. “But I will tell you they were angry from the standpoint of what happened in the election, because they’re smart, and they see, and they saw what happened. And I believe that was a big part of what happened on January 6.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/politics/trump-jan-6-documentary-footage-pence-25th-amendment/index.html

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    @germy shoemangler: Maybe Clark is hoping Snyder will spot Clark’s defense fund a few bucks. It’s a dangerous move, though. If this tweet is introduced at trial the jury might ask for the death penalty.

  50. 50.

    SpaceUnit

    It’s my understanding that Clark was considered a joke in the DOJ.  There would have so many resignations within the department that it would have become for all practical purposes a dead agency.

    Rosen, Donaghue and Engle met with Trump and told him flat out that Jeff Clark would be “leading a graveyard”.

  53. 53.

    Fester Addams

    Their whinging always makes me think historically, the penalties for participating in a failed coup attempt have been really pretty severe.

  57. 57.

    Immanentize

    @zhena gogolia: Good luck with the Docs!

    Everyone else — you should know who Jeff Clark is, Trump almost made him Attorney General near the end. He is a bad man. He sent then-Attny Gen. Rosen and the Deputy AG a draft he wanted them to sign immediately! that said the election was fraudulent and that new electors should be named. He was meeting with Trump, while head of the Civil Div. At DOJ without mentioning that to his bosses. They told him to fuck off, saving the country for a while at least.

  59. 59.

    Spanky

    @Geminid: What’s the opposite of jury nullification? A DC jury would give Snyder the death penalty for a parking violation at this point. And DC doesn’t even have a death penalty.

  60. 60.

    Immanentize

    @The Moar You Know: All true, plus true believers like Clark don’t think anyone would date go after them. I mean, they get on FOX a lot and everyone there loves them.

  61. 61.

    J R in WV

    Surely, if I was conspiring to commit a huge web of illegal conspiracies, I would destroy all the related devices, and buy brand new ones. Or perhaps this guy was dumb enough to use DoJ issued devices? We can hope!

  65. 65.

    germy shoemangler

    The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to probe possible financial relationships between members of the Oath Keepers accused of trying to prevent Joe Biden from becoming president and a nonprofit entity run by former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell that spread false election claims.

    The unusual request follows media reports that Powell’s nonprofit organization, Defending the Republic, has used some of the millions of dollars it has raised through spreading conspiracy theories about the 2020 election to pay legal fees for Oath Keepers members facing trial. According to BuzzFeed and Mother Jones articles cited in the filing, four defendants — including Stewart Rhodes, who founded the self-styled militia group — have taken funds from Powell’s organization.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/22/oathkeepers-defense-sidney-powell/

  66. 66.

    JoyceH

    @SpaceUnit: ​
     

    I loved that description of the confrontation in the Oval with all these lawyers and one said that Clark was in no way qualified to be AG. Clark went on about his experience and all the cases he’s worked on, and the other guy said something like, “Right. As an environmental lawyer. Go back to your office, we’ll call you if there’s an oil spill.”

  67. 67.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker: It wasn’t just a couple of guys at DOJ, they were facing mass resignations. And therefore the threat of all those people who knew where the bodies were coming forward. Maybe surprising Trump cared, but ego exposure is his worst nightmare I suspect. And Clark is a real loon.

  68. 68.

    Martin

    @Betty Cracker: Trump is like a criminal savant. He’s a fucking idiot at everything but criming, but there he’s at least competent.

    Part of the plan required not being too transparent that the army of co-conspirators would get cold feet, or rethink what their role was in all of this. I’m pretty sure the fake electors were acting in somewhat good faith to act as official electors, but that was never their job to Trump or Congress. The fake electors were only ever an excuse to dispute the actual electors, to delay, to kick the process over to a contingent election, which Trump would have won easily. But the electors needed to believe they were doing something generally legal and couldn’t be spooked off or else this would attract unwanted attention.

    My guess is that Trump was smart enough to not spook the existing DOJ folks who knew of the plot enough to cause them to go public.

    Look at all of the people who saw elements of this plan and kept their fucking mouth shut. We’re talking thousands of people. And in my experience in the public sector, the people that are there have incredible faith and loyalty to the institutions to themselves not be corrupt which sometimes causes them to see corrupt acts and wave them away as being outliers and not representative of the institution. That’s why whistleblower rules need to work well – because public sector workers aren’t always afraid to speak out, there’s a kind of faith that there is no need to.

    So as long as it appears you are criming at a shallow enough level – everyone is probably going to keep quiet. If they are threatening to quit, you are still at a shallow enough level. If they quit, decent chance they’ve also hit the point that they will speak out.

    I sure as shit hope there’s a bunch of political science academics that are exploring how Jan 6 affects the culture of how so many people agreed to be part of this criminal conspiracy (it’s thousands at this point), why the govt became so susceptible to this, and how to change the culture to prevent it.

    My gut sense is that the lack of accountability of people in government projects a false belief that these actions are legal and right and speaking out against them is a form of opinion.

  69. 69.

    PAM Dirac

    @The Moar You Know:

     

    Criminals in general seem utterly unaware that the crimes they know they’ve committed will be prosecuted, and they take no steps to sanitize anything.

    Even if he has managed to dump stuff from over a year ago, I suspect there is some pretty interesting stuff regarding what to do about the hearing that is about to start.

     

    ETA: I suspect the timing of the raid is not a coincidence.

  73. 73.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Jerzy Russian:

    How about one of those huge “busses” they use at Dulles airport (or used, been forever since I have been there)?  Plenty of room underneath one of those.

    Yeah, when you elevate one to full height you can stack the bodies really high underneath.

  74. 74.

    SpaceUnit

    @JoyceH:

    Yeah.  According to Rosen the guy had never conducted a criminal investigation in his life.  He was considered a kook by everyone in the department.

  75. 75.

    MisterDancer

    @piratedan: as even MSNBC pundits have noted, some of this shit is just laying on the ground to be gathered and 18 months is a long damn time to go out and clean up ripened fruit

    So, I’m not a Lawyer. But whenever someone says stuff like this, I think about THE WIRE. One of the brilliant things that show portrayed was the balance between “hoovering ’em up” and actually getting the ringleaders in ways that stick in court. It was part of my education (ranging from learning about handling evidence as part of a Security Certification, to listening to people like Popehat and Legal Eagle) on how complex evidence gathering has to be to work in even a normal case.

    Trump is known to have amazing savvy when it comes to hiring lawyers. The Conservative Movement can pull lawyer money outta it’s asshole, between wealthy patrons and the many who’ll toss $20 at a GoFundMe for these assholes. And, again, they are going up against people who actually worked in the DoJ, who know something of the tricks of that trade.

    Moreover, we keep slipping on the fact that all the 1/6 terrorists need to be tracked down, and ties built between their actions and the asshats directing the terror. As much as I want to throw them all in jail TODAY, I also want to see the DoJ built that rock-solid case that brings them all down. And that’s not a thing that you can build overnight; just gathering the kind of signals intelligence I know a wee bit about from cell phones and computers takes a lot more time than you’d think, unless you’re dragging everyone thru FISA-like judgements.

    Which they SHOULD, because — Terrorists. But, of course, White “Christian” Americans can’t be terrorists, so here we are.

  76. 76.

    Alison Rose

    Agreement. #EUCO has just decided EU candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova.

    A historic moment.

    Today marks a crucial step on your path towards the EU.

    Congratulations @ZelenskyyUa and @sandumaiamd and the people of Ukraine and

    Our future is together.
    — Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) June 23, 2022

    I literally started crying when I saw this.

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize: Fear of ego exposure (and rage about it, when it does happen) definitely explains everything about Trump, so that’s probably it. Thanks!

  79. 79.

    Betty Cracker

    @Martin:

    My gut sense is that the lack of accountability of people in government projects a false belief that these actions are legal and right and speaking out against them is a form of opinion.

    Sounds plausible to me.

  80. 80.

    MisterDancer

    @The Moar You Know: I might add from personal experience that it’s easy to catch people who have done this. Few people have the knowledge to really pull it off and leave no traces.

    People really don’t understand this. Hell, I posted a while back about a bunch of 1/6 terrorists who knew enough to not take their phones to the Capital, but still got busted because one of them left a burner on for a while, by accident, and it got rounded up when they were initially arrested.

    That was enough to pull phone records and other data to build a case around their conspiratorial actions.

    There’s almost too much data out there for finding someone. The DoJ’s challenge in this is pouring thru the haystack of modern data gathering, building a case off these traces to find the people who helped plan this atrocity and get dirt on them that no amount of lawyerin’ can wash away.

  81. 81.

    NotMax

    ‘@Betty Cracker

    There will always be those bound and determined to replacing the rule of law with the law of rule. And many willing to acquiesce.

  82. 82.

    Super Dave

    @Baud: Most bullies are actually cowards. Once they’re punched they usually go away crying. Too bad that hasn’t worked yet with Trump. Maybe he hasn’t been punched hard enough.

  84. 84.

    Baud

    Speaking of spoilation, I’m curious about the timing.  Maybe the FBI was concerned that Clark would destroy evidence in light of today’s J6 hearing about him.

  86. 86.

    germy shoemangler

    It’s unclear whether parts of Holder’s footage will air during Thursday’s presentation, but Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s chairman, said Wednesday that the committee needs more time to review the footage it obtained from Holder (as well as new information from the National Archives and new tips received since the hearings began) and, as a result, will delay its next round of hearings into July, according to CNN. The development of a potentially explosive trove of material seemingly came out of nowhere this week—even for ex-Trump officials.

    (vanity fair)

    I was looking forward to seeing some “explosive” footage today but it looks like it’ll take a while to trickle down to us.  A very brief excerpt was shown on TV though.  (link at my comment #48)

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.  The Goldfinger Rule.

  89. 89.

    JPL

    @Betty Cracker: There could be more, since the news would overwhelmingly link him to Nixon forever, impeachment would be a real possibility.   That’s why Nixon resigned.

    When they overturn Nixon era rules on clean air and clean water, we might end up missing him.

  90. 90.

    Gravenstone

    @germy shoemangler: Um, what exactly is he proposing that the EEOC ” handle” in lieu of the Congressional investigation? I  mean aside from the obvious misdirection, what is he claiming?

  93. 93.

    PAM Dirac

    @Baud:

     

    Maybe the FBI was concerned that Clark would destroy evidence in light of today’s J6 hearing about him.

    As I mentioned above, I also wonder whether the FBI thought they could catch him discussing how to cover up things that might come up in the hearing. It would be very interesting to know who he was communicating with in the last few days.

  100. 100.

    Wapiti

    @James E Powell: Destroying evidence is a crime. Not reporting the felony conspiracy is a crime. He might be pretty well jammed either way if they want to prosecute.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I think Trump was surprised by the response at the meeting and hadn’t thought the matter through. One story I read described Trump questioning a Justice Department official, maybe the Department’s Counsel, that he thought would be loyal to him. Trump was taken aback when that man said that he too would resign if Clark was elevated.

    Trump had already seen that White House Counsel Cippolone and his team were resisting his schemes. Now he saw that every  attorney in his official circle was against him except the Clark, a mediocrity. So Trump backed down, and tried to improvise a way around the Justice Department.

    I think Trump believed he would win the election, and never thought through a plan of action for if he lost. If he had, he would have chosen more compliant men to be Acting Attorney General and Acting Defense Secretary (although it may be that General Milley stiffened the acting SecDef’s spine).

    There was a lot of improvisation in Trump’s activities during the 34(?) days between the election and January 6, and his personal advisers were amateurs, lightweights and goofballs. Trump was and still is a trash magnet. And he is essentially a lazy and narcissistic man, and it’s a good thing that he is.

  103. 103.

    different-church-lady

    @MisterDancer:

    a bunch of 1/6 terrorists who knew enough to not take their phones to the Capital, but still got busted because one of them left a burner on for a while, by accident

    Look, haven’t you ever been to a convention and had a bit too much to drink?

  104. 104.

    Mark Regan

    @Martin:

    I think you may be giving both Trump and the DOJ people too much credit.  He wasn’t being very careful about his scheming, while the DOJ people were basically waiting for his term to end and for his scheming to be over.

  107. 107.

    PAM Dirac

    @Geminid:

     

    There was a lot of improvisation in Trump’s activities

    when you have the attention span and short term memory of a gnat, everything you do looks like improvisation.

  109. 109.

    NotMax

    ‘@different-church-lady

    Presumably you’ve heard about the guy who admits he brought along a holstered, loaded hand gun. And has said he lost it somewhere during the crush on the Capitol.

  113. 113.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @NotMax:

    I’m watching it right now. Such a terrible screenplay with so many plot holes….

    Music is topnotch, though, with great cars (64 Mustang, 64 TBird, suicide door Lincoln).

  114. 114.

    Immanentize

    @different-church-lady: oh geez!

    Blinded by the Light was on Greetings from Asbury Park put out in maybe 1973. Most people into music had that album (in NY at least.) In 1975, Springsteen and the E Street Band came out with their Born to Run Album which made Bruce a national mega star. I mean, he was on the covers of both Time and Newsweek in ’75 or ’76, I think.

    Manfred Mann’s version came out after Born to Run. Everyone (I thought) knew it was a Springsteen song and mocked the cover’s pronunciation of “duece.”

    And I am not a Springsteen fan.

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @Immanentize: The Manfred Mann cover of “Spirit in the Sky” was Glenn Youngkin’s campaign theme song. Now I associate it with sweater vests and upscale Republicans.

  116. 116.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Geminid:There was a lot of improvisation in Trump’s activities during the 34(?) days between the election and January 6, and his personal advisers were amateurs, lightweights and goofballs

    I wouldn’t be surprised to learn a lot of them were also scamming Trump too. It’s really hard to believe someone with Rudy’s background seriously thought the fake electors would work. More likely just spew bullshit as long Trump was paying him for a miracle cure for a lost election.

  118. 118.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @piratedan: Uncle just likes to stir the pot on this particular issue. The tell this time is the “never-ending.”

    ETA: And right on time, ZG grabs the handle for some stirring.

    Never, ever acknowledging that even seasoned prosecutors, including the House impeachment managers, finally took to calling out Garland in public venues. But hey, what do those hacks know, right?

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @piratedan:

    can understand them, I know it takes time to restaff a federal department with non-trumpies but as even MSNBC pundits have noted, some of this shit is just laying on the ground to be gathered and 18 months is a long damn time to go out and clean up ripened fruit.

    What are you talking about (non-rhetorical)? replacing personnel and actually filing indictments and setting up prosecutions and going for indictments (IANAL) are very different things. Chuck Rosenberg, the least-pundit-y of MSNBC pundits (the most pundit-y IMHO being a bald guy whose name is just at the tip of my fingers, Kirchener?) seems to always being patiently reminding people (even if his patience sometimes sounds a little strained) that the standards for criminal prosecution, much less conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, are very different from writing a deep-dive piece for a newspaper or magazine, or even for a Congressional hearing for which Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell have blunderingly given away all opportunities for adversarial methods in the room and on TV. By “cleaning up ripened fruit”, do you mean changes in personnel, or criminal prosecutions?

  122. 122.

    Bill Arnold

    @germy shoemangler:
    I replied to Jeff Clark on twitter a couple of weeks ago, from a little-used twitter account, with this:

    Frankly, in a just world you should be spending the rest of your life in prison. If Trumpists had succeeded in overturning democracy, a civil war would have resulted, initially non-violent but quickly turning violent and very destructive of lives, property and institutions.

  123. 123.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy shoemangler: I’d like to know who funds the “Center for Renewing America”, and how they feel about this Vought person going all in on defending the…. remarkably unprepossessing Jeff Clarke.

    Mike Lindell would be probably clapping and waving his little MAGA flag and hopping about excitedly in a chair made of His Pillows. I imagine the surviving Koch brother snarling into a phone, in a Mr Burns-like echoey hall, “You don’t go to the mat for an expendable pawn, you fool!”

  124. 124.

    piratedan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: my own feeling is that when you have to outsource the identification of J6 rioters and 18 months later you’re still working the angles and you have other folks, admitting crimes on tape/video/live broadcast that you haven’t brought in or have chosen to release a statement that you’re not going to pursue them that either I don’t know a LOT about the law (granted and freely admitted) but seems a mite premature to not have people who were in the thick of events that transpired, would have intimate knowledge of those events and state that he’s not a person of interest (Meadows).

    as much faith as I have in the institutions of government, I do admit to have perhaps read too much crime fiction and seen too much tv and have an assumption that with the facial recognition tools that exist and the lack of privacy that exists in various social media circles that a lot MORE of these folks should have been found (imho).

  125. 125.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @MisterDancer: And in many cases the evidence collection relies on things working their way through the courts.  Marcy Wheeler noted yesterday that:

    “On April 28, 2021, DOJ seized all of Rudy’s devices, based off a warrant targeting Rudy for his Ukraine graft probably approved by Lisa Monaco on her first day in office. If you think Rudy is part of the fake electors plot, then DOJ took a key step on April 28, 2021.

    …

    The privilege review of Eastman’s emails has taken 8 months. The privilege review for Rudy’s phones took 9 months.”

    And I don’t think that anyone in their right mind would suggest that DOJ should make a decision to indict Rudy BEFORE knowing what’s in those phones/emails.  Same with Mark Meadows’ texts, etc.

    DOJ policy is to only bring indictments if they are confident that they can prove every element of a crime, and get an unanimous conviction that will survive appeal.  They also have rules about piggybacking on the work/work-products of other courts (like the Meadows civil court case which should be resolved soon).  These are just a few of the very real timing issues that make the process slow but have nothing to do with DOJ dragging their feet.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @Geminid:

    What the hell are “upscale Republicans”?

    I don’t think I’ve ever met, seen or heard of an actual upscale Republican. Everyone I’ve known has been dirt scratching, chicken pecking dirt level, never upscale.

  127. 127.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @UncleEbeneezer: also, as I believe you have pointed out, once the indictments everyone is clamoring for arrive, the defendants and their counsel will have access to all the information the DoJ has.

    and the bigger the indicted fish, the more expensive that counsel is likely to be

    and those fish may decide it’s in their interest to pass information on to bigger fish that Garland might have his eye on

  128. 128.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Chief Oshkosh: The House Impeachment managers are not part of the DOJ nor they privy to what DOJ is/isn’t doing.  They have a totally different job than DOJ.

    I doubt that the raid of Clark’s house is something that DOJ just suddenly decided to do on a whim.  I’m guessing this is something they have been working on and the pieces have been in motion for a long time.  We’ll see as more of the backstory comes out.  But it sure looks for now like this DOJ has been doing a lot of investigating of the things/people that we’ve been told they weren’t investigating.

  129. 129.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yup.  And when you are talking about a conspiracy, that could be a bunch of people who are suddenly tipped off and quickly start destroying evidence that DOJ needs to prove its’ case or corroborating their stories to avoid being caught in lies.

  133. 133.

    lowtechcyclist

    @NotMax: ​
     

    “We’re gonna need a bigger bus.”

    Maybe they can borrow a good chunk of the Metrobus fleet at 2am one morning when not too many buses are running. They’ll need more than a few.

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    @Ruckus:

    I don’t think I’ve ever met, seen or heard of an actual upscale Republican. Everyone I’ve known has been dirt scratching, chicken pecking dirt level, never upscale.

    Doctors, dentists, auto dealership owners, small business operators, truckers, ex-military motivational speakers (ask me how I know about these!) — just a whole bunch of people that were successful but relatively uneducated.

    Sure, plenty of them are chicken scratching poor, but not all of them. For example, we’ve met nurses and medical techs who were, once you got to know them, obviously trump voters, sad tho it may be.

  137. 137.

    J R in WV

    Yesterday was Wife’s late parents’ wedding anniversary, and since it was a beautiful summer day she wanted to drive across the river to the rural cemetery where their ashes are deposited and leave them some white roses. It was sunny and pretty  but a little hot.

    The cemetery was level ground and each grave has a brass plate embedded over each plot with names and details many were Veterans from one of the   major wars of the last century. Wife’s father was in the Coasties on a tiny DDE. Chasing Nazis in Uboats mostly by depth charges but some with the 5″ main gun or torpedoes for variety. John had some engineering and pretty quickly became chief engineer and was made a LT CMDR.

    We stopped by Kroger’s where Wife picked her bouquet of white roses which I trimmed and we put the flowers in the brass vase… they were  beautiful in the summer sun. It was all we did,  I drove us back home and fixed dinner

    l know that this short cemetery visit seems typical,  and it was, but her dad, who was a kind and gifted guy also had major issues no doubt installed by his mom in the 1929s. Plus by the time I knew him his  combat memories had worked on him hard with PTSD and guilt. He  medicated with bourbon,  and got mean when he drank.

    Wife’s  mom taught French and AP English in high school,  and  was a narcissistic and demanding person, so lots of very mixed feelings going o

    As wife said, “They did the best they could”!  And then I drove home and  made dinner.

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