Remember when we had an entire impeachment because the last president supposedly tried to use the official capacity of his office to push for an investigation of Biden family corruption? Well, the current president, who just so happens to be Joe Biden, has taken things a step further, using the official capacity of his office to push for the prosecution of Donald Trump.
So, when does the impeachment start?
That’s a rhetorical question, of course, but there is a new report confirming what I’m sure many suspected: Biden wants the DOJ to criminally charge Trump for something related to January 6th.
The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.
I wouldn’t believe for a second that Biden hasn’t actually expressed his frustrations directly to AG Merrick Garland. But even if that’s true, this report was written for a reason. Leaks don’t just occur randomly, especially when they aren’t clearly designed to hurt the person they portend to quote. In this case, Biden and his handlers obviously want this message to get to Garland — otherwise, this never makes it to print. So, while that might not be a “direct” demand of the DOJ, it’s certainly meant to accomplish the same thing, which is to pressure Garland into pulling the trigger on prosecuting Trump.
In that vein, it’s an abuse of power, at least by the standards Democrats and the media breathlessly established during the last administration. Trump was constantly accused of corruptly intervening at the DOJ, but now that it’s Biden doing the pressuring, it’ll be treated as no big deal.
To clarify my view, though, the president does have statutory authority over the DOJ, and there is no actual “independence” involved in the department. That’s a facade the left uses anytime there’s a Republican in the White House in order to try to keep their gravy train of corruption rolling. With that said, despite claims to the contrary (one occurs in the first paragraph of the above Times article), Biden has not made the DOJ “independent.” One look at how the White House coordinated with the DOJ to push for the “domestic terrorism” letter targeting parents at school board meetings shows that. Garland has also clearly been taking direction from the administration on suing Republican states over election security laws, among other things.
Still, the question remains exactly what the DOJ is supposed to charge Trump with. To this point, there’s been no actual evidence that the former president planned or directed any of the events of January 6th. Further, his words on that day did not call for violence but did call for peaceful protesting. Past that, it seems incredibly silly to suggest Trump could be charged for not acting quickly enough in response, something Liz Cheney has often suggested. If that’s a criminal action, it opens the door for basically every president to be prosecuted for some decision or another. Besides, Trump did nothing to obstruct any response to January 6th and he wouldn’t have had any involvement with the goings-on of law enforcement that day.
Regardless, what this boils down to is Biden attempting to use his office to prosecute his political enemy. I’ve been assured that’s the gravest sin a president can commit. Unfortunately, the rules don’t apply to Democrats. As to Trump, the continued pursuit of him, especially on criminal grounds, will only make him stronger going into 2024. It’s a stupid play, but this is Joe Biden we are talking about.