Remember Nicholas Roske, the guy who attempted to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh? Apparently, the Justice Department doesn’t, which is why they seem to have forgotten that they are supposed to be prosecuting him.
The incident, which occurred in June 2022, came amid nationwide controversy due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Yet, the case has been meandering through the legal system without so much as a trial date.
The question is: Why?
Roske was apprehended with a suitcase of weapons and a plan to kill the justice. He was motivated by the leaked draft opinion on the case. He traveled from California to Kavanaugh’s home but called the police on himself instead of going through with the effort.
It seems like an open-and-shut case, doesn’t it? Yet, there has not been much movement over the past two years. The delay has elicited questions from members of the chattering class.
“It’s noteworthy that after nearly two years, there is still no trial date or plea agreement in this case,” Gerard Filitti, senior counsel at The Lawfare Project, told the Free Beacon. “While pretrial motions would resolve questions about the admissibility of some of the evidence, including statements made by Roske, there is no underlying procedural reason why it would take this long to get to trial.”
Prosecutors’ willingness to slow-walk the case comes amid an ongoing pressure campaign from progressives seeking to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Biden has repeatedly attacked the nation’s High Court, including during last month’s State of the Union address where he rebuked the conservative justices for overturning Roe v. Wade. Left-wing billionaires such as George Soros have also bankrolled efforts to pack the Court with more justices.
Filitti said that due to the case’s high visibility and political ramifications, it was possible prosecutors are seeking to “let public interest simmer down before a plea agreement is quietly announced.”
Charles “Cully” Stimson, a former federal prosecutor, told reporters that if the DOJ has “solid evidence,” there is “very little reason for the government to offer very much at all” in terms of a plea agreement.
Currently, Roske is still in plea negotiations with the authorities.
Two years after law enforcement thwarted Nicholas Roske’s alleged plot against Kavanaugh, the case remains unresolved, but a filing late last week revealed a judge agreed to grant the two parties more time.
“The parties’ discussions regarding a pretrial resolution are ongoing. To permit these discussions to continue, the parties request they be permitted to provide a further status report on or before April 29, 2024,” the filing explained.
Shortly after being taken into custody, Roske told investigators that he was outraged by the abortion ruling and the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
So, if this is such a “slam dunk” case, why is the DOJ slow-walking it? Are there political considerations in play, or are they just too busy trying to prosecute former President Donald Trump and pro-life protesters?
At this point, it’s hard to tell. Perhaps there is a reasonable explanation that isn’t quite clear at the moment. But one thing is clear: Roske is lucky he wasn’t at the Capitol building on Jan. 6—otherwise, he’d have been prosecuted long ago and would already be serving out his sentence.