Tag Archives: DOJ

crime news, FBI, legal news, national news

Do they really mean ‘civil war’?

What in the name of certifiable insanity is happening along the rightward fringe of political discourse, with individuals and groups yammering about the prospects of “civil war” if certain events don’t go the way they want them to go?

There well could be multiple indictments coming from at least two states, and the U.S. Department of Justice over the conduct of the most recent former president of the United States. Donald Trump’s cult followers are vowing to take to the streets. They will exact revenge if their leader faces criminal prosecution.

Some of ’em have said they expect a civil war to erupt. What the … ?

Hey, we all know what happened when we had a Civil War in this country. Six hundred thousand Americans died on battlefields throughout much of the eastern United States. The war ended. President Lincoln vowed to bind the wounds that tore us apart … only to be assassinated.

Now some among us are predicting a return to that horrifying chapter in our national history. And why? Because the Justice Department is doing its job in accordance with federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

Oh, and then we have two states — Georgia and New York — looking as well into possible criminal behavior. They, too, are operating legally and ethically in the search for the truth.

Oh, my. These threats frighten the daylights out of me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news, national security, political news

All eyes on DOJ, but wait …

Millions of Americans — such as me — are fixated at the moment on the U.S. Department of Justice seizure of those “highly classified” documents from Donald J. Trump’s glitzy home in Florida.

I keep hearing an endless string of legal analyses that suggest an indictment of someone — perhaps the ex-president — is inevitable.

Let’s be clear, though, about something that is getting buried under all the rhetoric about the DOJ probe: It is just one of several investigations underway concerning the criminal behavior many of us believe occurred during the entirety of Trump’s single term as POTUS.

What’s brewing? Let’s see:

  • A Fulton County (Ga.) grand jury is looking into whether Trump tampered with election results by demanding that the Georgia secretary of state “find” enough votes to turn the election result there from pro-Joe Biden to pro-Trump.
  • The New York attorney general is examining whether the Trump Organization falsified its assets to (a) obtain favorable loans or (b) avoid paying debts it owes.
  • The House 1/6 select committee is probing whether Trump committed an act of sedition against the U.S. government by inciting the attack on the Capitol and then was derelict in his duty as POTUS by refusing to call off the attack once it commenced, resulting in injury and death to police officers and at least one attacker.

That’s several full plates, don’t you think?

Of all those probes, the one that needs to be finished soon is the congressional investigation. The midterm election well could result in Republicans taking control of the House and we all know what’ll happen then: the GOP leadership will shut it all down and will pretend there is nothing to see.

There happens to be plenty to see and do, which makes the House panel’s work all the more urgent.

It’s almost enough to make me wonder how in the name of sanity does the former president or those closest to him avoid being charged with some criminal act. I cannot assess which of the potential charges are forthcoming, or which of them will emerge as the most serious.

I do have this nagging gut grumble that’s telling me that when the legal eagles finish their work, we’re about to see history made in a way that will make the 45th POTUS a mighty unhappy man.

Shall we all just stay tuned?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news, political news

Evidence is clear …

Merrick Garland is facing one of the most complicated decisions imaginable, even as he considers what appears to be a mountain of evidence that, by all rights, should simply that decision.

The U.S. attorney general, a former judge who understands the meaning of legal precedent, is likely poring over evidence gathered that suggests — strongly, I should add — that he must indict a former president of the United States.

On what charge or charges? Let’s consider obstruction of justice, or inciting violence, or violations of the Espionage Act, or conspiracy to commit sedition.

Donald J. Trump, to put it as succinctly as I possibly can, is in a deep pile of doo-doo.

The FBI search of Trump’s home in Florida has produced evidence of a possible crime. We’ve all seen it now that the heavily redacted affidavit authorizing the search warrant has been released. The chatter is getting louder about the national security secrets that well might have been compromised when the ex-POTUS took those documents with him when he left office in January 2021.

Therein is where the AG faces the conundrum for the ages.

He says that “no one is above the law.” The means former presidents are as vulnerable to prosecution as, well, anyone. No ex-president ever has faced a criminal indictment.

The AG appears to be a careful man, not to mention a meticulous prosecutor. May he take great care in preparing what has been laid out before him. Then he can deliver justice where it belongs!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Resisting the pull of anticipation

Getting one’s heart to racing over the possibility that bad people will be made to account for the misdeeds can be dangerous to one’s emotional well-being.

I know that. Because I am suffering a bit from high expectations stemming from the myriad investigations into the conduct of a former president of the United States.

Yeah, that one … named Donald John Trump.

I keep hearing from commentators, legal eagles, constitutional scholars and assorted lawyerly minds that Trump is in deep doo-doo over many issues. He’s going to pay the price, they keep saying.

I’ll admit that I don’t listen to the Trump cultists/apologists who spend little time denying he did wrong but who question the motives of those who are doing the investigating.

I am resisting the temptation to get swept up in what I admit would be “joy” if indictments land on Trump’s thick but vacuous skull.

It’s tough, to be sure. I’ll remain strong.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

Defund the FBI?

The right-wing extremists — the QAnon adherents and election deniers — need to be committed, sent to the nut house and left to fester in the dark.

These are the cretins who are calling for Congress to “defund the FBI” in the wake of the agency’s search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida for classified documents that Trump took from the White House when he left office in January 2021.

This is simply an astonishing thing to hear from those who proclaim to be “patriots” who believe in “law and order” and who declare that they are friends and allies of those who enforce our laws.

My … goodness.

Patriotic Americans wouldn’t vilify government agents who were acting on lawful orders. Nor would they attack law enforcement officers — such as what occurred on 1/6. Moreover, no friend or ally of police would ever present physical threats of harm to those who occupy the thin blue line that protects American society.

One Republican congressional candidate has actually said that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be executed. Can you believe that? Oh, sure you can! Why? Because it’s becoming part of the GOP mantra.

It’s disgraceful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news, national news

So many options for AG and others to ponder

As I sit here in the peanut gallery far from Ground Zero in the Donald Trump investigation hotbed, I find myself thinking about the options that await the former president of the United States.

Only one of them looks good and at this moment it appears to be the farthest from taking shape.

Attorney General Merrick Garland is among those who are trying to determine whether to indict the ex-president on criminal charges. We also have the Fulton County (Ga.) district attorney looking into allegations of vote tampering and the New York state AG examining whether Trump’s business committed crimes. Oh, and then we have the House of Reps’ select committee examining whether Trump broke the law by inciting the mob of traitors to storm the Capitol on 1/6 and seek to stop the certification of the 2020 election … that Trump lost to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

There’s nothing cast in stone that says Garland must indict Trump on anything, let alone on the most serious charges he might be considering. The AG could determine there isn’t enough to send Trump to prison for the rest of his life, so he might decide to pursue lesser charges.

Then the DA in Fulton County, Fani Willis, also might determine that Trump didn’t really seek to interfere with the election by demanding that the state “find” enough votes to put him over the top.

New York AG Letitia James also could find that she doesn’t have the goods on Trump’s business, even though his chief financial officer has pleaded guilty to tax fraud and is awaiting a sentence.

And what about the House panel? The committee has compiled a mountain of evidence that suggests everything from inciting insurrection and dereliction of duty on 1/6. The testimony we have heard has been stunning in the extreme!

But you see, Trump is facing a mounting array of legal challenges … even as he supposedly ponders whether to run for the presidency yet again in 2024. My strong sense is that one of those challenges is going to fall hard on The Donald.

The least likely option would be for none of these probes to produce a formal criminal charge against the former president. I understand fully the gravity of taking such a step. I also grasp the blowback that would occur from the cultists out there who continue to excuse the ex-POTUS’s conduct at all levels in the period after the 2020 election.

It just occurs to me that the very last person on this Earth I would want to be is Donald John Trump.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Keep it secret, feds

Now comes word that Donald J. Trump and his dwindling ranks of allies want the federal government to unseal the affidavit that prompted the judge to approve a request by the FBI to search Trump’s south Florida home for criminal evidence.

I’ll join those who suggest that releasing that document would be a mistake, that it could compromise the probe and that Attorney General Merrick Garland acted in good faith when he sought permission to send in the agents.

The FBI has collected a substantial amount of paperwork that Trump took from the White House when he left office in January 2021. Some of it appears to be, um, highly classified. That’s a no-no. There could be violations of the Espionage Act and the Presidential Records Act that the Justice Department will consider as it ponders whether to indict the former POTUS.

The affidavit, though, is another matter. I am all in favor of transparency. However, if it compromises a criminal investigation, then there ought to be limits on how much we see.

As I have noted before, I trust the AG implicitly to be a man of high honor and integrity. He said he will “follow the law” wherever it leads. I believe he is doing that. He also is arguing that the affidavit need not be revealed for all the world to see.

Let the man and our Justice Department do their job.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Uncategorized

Ga. probe looms as major Trump threat

If I was a betting man — and I have to stipulate that I am nothing of the sort — I would wager that Donald J. Trump’s gravest threat to his future looms in the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney’s office.

The former president is under investigation in many venues: Congress, the Justice Department, Manhattan (N.Y.) and Fulton County.

It’s the Georgia matter that, to my way of thinking, presents Trump with his most serious threat. Why? Because the whole world has heard Trump’s own voice demand that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger “find” enough votes to swing the state from Joe Biden’s column to Trump’s.

Where I come from, I believe that amounts to a clear-cut, no-questions-need-asking, tried-and-true case of election tampering.

Oh, and there’s more to that recorded conversation. You might recall that Trump actually threatened Raffensberger with criminal prosecution if he didn’t do what the president wanted him to do.

I have been wondering ever since I heard about this: If this doesn’t constitute a crime, then what in the world qualifies?

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is pursuing this probe with all appropriate vigor. Indeed, I have thought all along that this case presented Trump with his most daunting set of allegations. What’s more — thanks to Raffensberger, who thought to record the phone conversation — we can hear the POTUS in his own voice pressuring the election official to, shall we say, “steal the 2020 presidential election.”

The House select committee that is pursuing the insurrection also is piling up a mountain of evidence that suggests criminality within the White House. The Manhattan probe, though, appears to be losing steam. The Justice Department probe? Well, Attorney General Merrick Garland has made it abundantly clear that “no one is above the law” and by “no one,” the AG means, well … no one.

If I were Donald Trump — and I am so glad that I ain’t — I would be sweatin’ bullets over what might be coming his way from Deep in the Heart of Dixie.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, national news

FBI is now the enemy?

Never did I imagine — not one time in all my years on this good Earth — that we would see the Federal Bureau of Investigation become the target of hate among Americans.

What’s more, the FBI has become the target of a political demographic with a long and eloquent history supporting the agency’s effort to fight organized and other sorts of crime.

We now hear — and this is weird beyond belief — that we need to “de-fund the FBI.” Who’s making that absurd demand? Right-wingers who were so quick to chastise lefties for calling for de-funding the police in the wake of a string of police-involved shootings of Black men and women.

What in the world is happening to us?

The FBI now is a right-wing target because agents obtained a search warrant that enabled them to search the home of a former president of the United States because they had “probable cause” to believe the ex-POTUS had taken highly sensitive material with him from the White House to his home in South Florida.

Earth to right-wingers: That is against the law!

Don’t right wingers believe in the rule of law? That no one is above the law? Didn’t the attorney general, Merrick Garland, pledge to pursue anyone who has broken the law “without fear or favor”?

I must re-state what is obvious to me.

AG Garland followed the letter of the law in seeking a warrant from a federal judicial magistrate.  Federal law does not set a terribly high bar; it asks only that prosecutors can prove “probable cause” that a crime has been committed. The feds made the case to the judge, who then issued the warrant.

Moreover, Donald Trump’s legal team met the agents as they commenced their search. There was no “surprise,” no “siege” at Mar-a-Lago. It was done by the book.

For that the right-wingers want to “de-fund the FBI”?

I have said before that politics at times gets turned upside down and, for good measure, inside out. This is one of those times.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

crime news, legal news

Garland’s stock keeps rising

Merrick Garland’s stock keeps appreciating, in my humble view, as he weathers the storm of criticism being heaped on him by the far-right wing of the political horde that awaits some finality in what the U.S. attorney general determines regarding Donald J. Trump.

We have at least one nutjob member of Congress filing impeachment papers against Garland. Why? Because he ordered the search of Trump’s Florida home for classified papers the ex-president squirreled away … illegally!

Right-wing media hounds keep referring to the search as a “raid,” implying that the FBI agents pounced on the former president’s home, behind his back. Good grief! Garland performed this act by the book. It was legal and totally constitutional.

He is defending the agents and others within the Justice Department who have come under fire by the right-wingers who — were they investigating a Democratic former president — would be the darlings of the conservative media.

And I was struck by a particular phrase he used in defending the agents and other DOJ staffers. He declared his pride in “working alongside them.” Think of that for just a moment. There was no self-aggrandizement in that statement, no sense of “they work for me, therefore I am better than they are.” No. He stands shoulder to shoulder with the men and women he calls “patriotic public servants.”

Garland is a stellar public servant himself. I am glad he’s on the job. I also am grateful that President Biden persuaded this top-notch legal mind to stand firm in the face of criticism he had to know was coming his way.

Stand tall, Merrick Garland … and stay strong. The nation needs you.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com