Where's the Justice in the DOJ?

In December 2019, President Donald Trump was impeached for allegedly withholding aid to Ukraine to convince them to investigate Joe Biden and fuel debunked conspiracies about the 2016 election. After a trial, during which Republicans prevented any evidence or witnesses from being presented, Trump was acquitted by the Republican majority.

In January 2021, Trump was impeached a second time for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election. After a trial that showed incompetence by Democrats and insanity by Republicans, Trump was acquitted again. This time, the majority of Senators voted guilty, but because the Senate was designed to give more power to the slave state- I mean, the conservative states, the (Republican) minority was able to overturn the majority.

We were assured that justice would be served, however. Multiple suits, previously held up because a president is apparently above the law, would be leveled against Trump. The Department of Justice, no longer in Trump's pocket, would bring the hammer down and finally punish the Trump administration for everything they did.

I think we all know where this is going.

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I get it. We're all tired of Trump. You can't check mainstream news without seeing what insane thing Trump said yesterday. Even some Republicans desperately want us to forget that they supported him until they saw an opportunity to "criticize" him when it no longer mattered. Trump obviously craves attention, and we're fueling his ego every time we talk about him.

Unfortunately, we have to talk about him.

Trump is emblematic of a larger problem in our society: If you have money, power, or influence, you're above the law (being white also helps). Trump has all three and is trying to get away with literal treason. If he does, it opens the door for a lot more criminality with no repercussions. Luckily, he's an idiot, so we have mountains of evidence that's been made public, and who knows how much more that's still confidential. I feel like even I could put together a solid case. So keep that in mind for the rest of this article.

One of the higher-profile cases going on is the New York DOJ investigation of Trump and his company for lying about... well, everything related to his finances. It's something that's been talked about for basically his whole real-estate career and was fueled by his refusal to release his tax returns, something that every president since Nixon has done. As I mentioned before, Trump was able to skate by for his term as President because Republicans argued that a sitting president cannot be tried in a court of law (not that that'll stop them from prosecuting Democrats in the future). With Biden's inauguration, the NY DOJ finally moved forward with its investigation, lead by District Attorney Cy Vance (D). Vance brought on Mark Pomerantz and Carey Dunne, two veteran attorneys that were more than qualified to finally pin Trump down. Evidence was piling up, things were going great. Then everything changed when Alvin Bragg attacked. Only Pomerantz and Dunne could stop Trump, but when the world needed them most, they vanished.

Alvin Bragg (D) is the current New York District Attorney. He won the election after Vance decided to retire. Bragg was apparently enthusiastic about the investigation, engaging in meetings, asking questions, offering suggestions (as per this New York Times article). But just a few weeks later, he flipped. He started leaving meetings early, grilled the attorneys heavily, and had meetings about the case that excluded Pomerantz and Dunne. And last month, Bragg decided to suddenly stop the investigation. He refused to approve the charges against Trump. He was supposedly worried they might not get a conviction and that the mountain of evidence, including testimony from Michael Cohen, wasn't strong enough. In two weeks, Bragg went from enthusiasm to serious doubt, and within a month put a stop to a three-year long case. Pomerantz and Dunne resigned in protest a few days ago.

This isn't terribly surprising given the history of our country, but it's still disappointing. Establishment Dems are big fans of talking, but when it really comes down to it, they refuse to go all the way. Why try if there's a chance of failure when you can just do nothing?

Now we're going to move up the governmental hierarchy to the federal level. Trump and his administration are also being investigated by the United States Department of Justice, headed by Merrick Garland. Biden appointed Garland as Attorney General to bring the DOJ back to its origins: a nonpartisan office of law enforcement. Its job is to ensure that those that act against the law of the land are brought to justice, regardless of party. So obviously Garland must be going after Trump for his crimes, which, don't forget, include attempting a coup. Even the freaking National Archives are requesting a DOJ investigation because Trump took a lot of classified documents to Mar-a-Lago. He also shredded a bunch of records (that definitely didn't have anything incriminating in them /s) that some poor intern had to tape back together.

So what's Garland doing? Well as far as we know, nothing. Garland hasn't said anything about any investigation into Trump. Now I know the DOJ likes to wait to officially announce investigations until there's an indictment, but they usually don't try very hard to hide it. So this, combined with establishment Dems' utter fear of change and ruffling anyone's feathers (except progressives, of course), is making a lot of people, myself included, worried that Garland will decide not to indict Trump at all. And can you blame us? The "progressive" party's MO has always been to "make nice" with the opposition. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I encourage you to read some of the other things I've written. So given that history, I wouldn't be surprised if Garland's "nonpartisan" ideals means he won't punish a wannabe dictator because some Republicans might call him a dirty liberal.

So why am I writing this? Well, given that I'm a young leftist and I spend way too much time reading about this stuff, I have a pretty good idea of how other young leftists think and feel. We're tired. We're tired of living in a system that encourages and rewards evil people. We're tired of watching evil people get away with evil things. We're tired of the supposedly good people letting the evil people get away. We're tired of being ignored, and then being blamed by the "good" people when they fail. But we're not tired enough to give up.

Yesterday, the GOP warned that a DOJ probe would lead to political war. It's about fucking time we went to war.