PART ONE—MAJOR ARTICE
Merrick Garland in Kyiv--If you want to help Ukraine, indict Trump
From The Trenchant Observer, June 21, 2022
Dispatches
1) María Luisa Paúl, Jonathan Edwards, Julian Mark, Andrea Salcedo, Adam Taylor and Reis Thebault (Russia-Ukraine war live updates), “U.S. attorney general visits Kyiv,” Washington Post, June 21, 2022 (Updated at 5:25 pm EDT);
2) William A. Galston, “Return of the Arsenal of Democracy; As the Ukraine war drags on, it will test America’s and the West’s commitment,” Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2022 (1:19 pm ET);
3) Jack Goldsmith, “Prosecute Trump? Put Yourself in Merrick Garland’s Shoes,” New York Times, June 20, 2022.
Mr. Goldsmith served in the George W. Bush administration as an assistant attorney general, office of legal counsel, and as special counsel to the general counsel of the Department of Defense.
Analysis
The Washington Post reported today that even Attorney General Merrick Garland wanted to get into the act of supporting Ukraine, and has traveled to Kyiv. The Post related:
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland met with Ukraine’s top prosecutor Tuesday during an unannounced trip to Kyiv. Garland, announcing the launch of a U.S. “war crimes accountability team,” pledged to “pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”
Garland’s trip only underlines how ludicrous President Biden’s strategy for countering Russian aggression in Ukraine has become.
Last week Biden’s brilliant idea was to build temporary grain silos in Poland for transshipment of Ukrainian wheat and other grains by train for subsequent shipment by sea from European ports.
If Merrick Garland wants to do something to help Ukraine, he should indict Donald Trump.
Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, who served in the George W. Bush administration, has published an Op-ed in the New York Times which reads like a brief for Garland’s doing nothing. Garland could not have obtained a better defense for his inaction if he had paid for it.
Goldsmith’s belabored argument calls to mind the definition of Ambrose Bierce in his Devil’s Dictionary: “Lawyer–0ne skilled in the circumvention of the law.”
The law is actually not that complicated, though lawyers like Professor Goldsmith leaning hard in one direction can make it appear that way.
Basically, the argument now goes, the Justice Department has to be virtually certain that it could obtain a criminal conviction before it brings charges against a defendant like Trump.
That is not the way the law is written, however many twists and turns the Justice Department might give it to avoid its duty to prosecute crime.
If Merrick Garland wants to do something to really help Ukraine, he should indict Donald Trump.
No step could help Ukraine more in the longer term, by taking some of the air out of Trump's propaganda bubble. While not so motivated, this step would also have as a consequence a decreased likelihood that an insurrectionist like Donald Trump or a Trump acolyte with similar views could win the presidential election in 2024.
It might also take some of the wind out of the sails of the pro-Russian faction within the ranks of Republicans in the House and the Senate.
Unless he corrects course soon, Garland will go down in history as the man who was afraid to indict Trump, with personal moral responsibility for all that ensued as a result of his malfeasance in office.
See,
1) “Merrick Garland’s tragic epitaph: The man who wouldn’t prosecute Donald Trump,” The Trenchant Observer, May 2, 2022;
2) “Policy of Impunity continues at Merrick Garland’s Justice Department, as statute of limitations runs out on obstruction of justice cases detailed in Mueller Report,” The Trenchant Observer, February 2, 2022.
PART TWO—Weekly Section
INSIGHTS AND ANALYSIS
It was another week of war, of brutal killing of men by men. The brutal killing of men by men on a far-off front, at least for the Americans, and for them something lost in their receding consciousness of events in such far-off places.
If it’s not “breaking news” on the cable TV channels, it’s not really news that is going to affect American viewers, right?
In the meantime, the Russians are making steady gains in the Donbas, where they have an overwhelming advantage in artillery pieces, perhaps 15 to 1, and an even greater superiority in ammunition and the number of shells they can fire and are firing.
Reports are that somewhere between 100 and 200 Ukrainian soldiers are being killed every day, and on some days the numbers are much higher.
Distant cannon shots in a faraway land. “What could they possibly have to do with me?” Americans ask.
“We support the heroic Ukrainians, of course, but this war has gone on for an awfully long time, and in California gas is over $6 a gallon at the pump,” others observe.
Meanwhile the January 6 hearings continued to capture public attention this week, at least until Friday, June 24 when the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision establishing a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Critics believe the Supreme Court has been corrupted, and is now in the firm grip of right-wing ideologues. If the Court can overturn such a fundamental constitutional right, reaffirmed repeatedly for almost 50 years, they argue, it can overturn any right. They add that we have not had such an unprincipled runaway court for over a century.
The Court also struck down this week a New York law restricting the right of individuals to carry arms in public.
Meanwhile, results in the Republican primaries this week confirmed that Donald Trump maintains his great influence over Republicans running for Congress.
Democrats are finally beginning to discuss, however quietly, who else might run for president in 2024, as it increasingly appears that Joe Biden doesn’t have much of a chance of winning the election that year, when he will be 82 years old.
In her Wall Street Journal column on Friday, Peggy Noonan spoke for many when she wrote the following:
As for Mr. Biden, his poll numbers continue to be historically dismal. The other day, watching him call for suspension of the federal gasoline tax, I had a sensation exactly like…like 1978. Nonstop crises and the president natters on. The news broadcast shows the price sticker on 2 pounds of ground beef in the local grocery store, and a shopper says, “Hard for families now,” and they cut to Washington and . . . the president natters. The next story it’s a close-up of the numbers on the gas pump in San Diego and they cut to Washington and . . . the president natters.
“Mush From the Wimp.”
And there’s a broad sense that Mr. Biden isn’t going through a rough patch or a tough year, that it’s not going to get better, that he has poor judgment and he’s about to hit 80 and it’s not going to change. Everyone sees this and it’s produced a sense of unease.
The 1/6 hearings are doing nothing to help Mr. Biden—some thought they would—but they are sinking Mr. Trump.
Overseas, French President Emmanuel Macron lost his parliamentary majority in legislative elections in which his party did poorly, while the leftist alliance NUMES led by Jean-Luc Mélanchon did very well, as did Marine Le Pen’s right-wing National Rally party (previously the National Front or Front National party). The National Rally captured some 89 seats in the 577-member Parlement, an eleven-fold increase over the eight seats it won in the 2017 elections.
Both Mélanchon and Le Pen seek to weaken the EU and NATO, and have been sympathetic to Vladimir Putin in the past.
In Ecuador, an indigenous movement has paralyzed the country for over 11 days with a strike motivated by cost-of-living issues. The army has been called out to protect key buildings in Quito, the capital.
There is also good news to report. The European Union formally granted member candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova, though not to Georgia.
In Colombia, Gustavo Petro, a former leftist guerrilla, defeated a populist Trump-like figure who came out of nowhere in the first-round election, in which the traditional conservative party candidate placed third and didn’t even make it into the run-off.
Petro is a former mayor of Bogotá, the capital, and fears of future leftist policies seem greatly exaggerated. He promises to bring reconciliation to a population riven by civil war and sectarian divisions including massive human rights violations over the last 50 years. Ex-president Álvaro Uribe, the leader of the forces on the right, has accepted the election result.
The future looks bright for Colombia, a country of talented people and immense resources.
Overall the articles are interesting. I know you see yourself as calling it as you see it...but like.the rest of us your biases come through.
Yes, the war most stop, Trump must go to jail, etc etc.
Is Biden to blame for all our woes?
Of course not.
If law and order were simple would we have the world we have today?
We the people are the problem. Do you have insights to help solve that problem?