We are all going to know in due course — but it won’t occur within the next few days — what lurks inside the head and the heart of the U.S. attorney general, Merrick Garland.
The House select committee examining the insurrection that occurred on 1/6 is going to make a decision after it concludes its testimony-taking from witnesses who saw what happened in the White House on that hideous day.
Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney more or less let it be known what the panel is thinking, which is that Donald J. Trump was criminally liable for what he did to provoke the traitorous mob into attacking the Capitol Building. What Trump did that day, Cheney said, was “illegal” and “immoral.” The illegal part lies at the crux of what Garland is facing.
If the committee determines that the 45th POTUS committed an illegal act, then it falls onto Garland to decide whether the Justice Department should charge him with committing a felony.
It’s never been done before. Thus, AG Garland is facing an unprecedented quandary. Garland has declared he will follow the facts wherever they lead. If they lead his legal team into the Oval Office that day, well, that means an indictment is a cinch.
Garland strikes many of as a careful, thoughtful man, one who is not prone to embark on half-baked fishing expeditions just to make a political point.
You know what I want to see happen. In truth, though, the desires of the public should mean nothing to Garland as he ponders what he should do.
I just want to remind everyone about a fundamental truth that has been repeated publicly to the point of it becoming almost cliche. It is that “no one — not even the president of the United States — is above the law.”