I never imagined I’d ever put Merrick Garland and Steely Dan in the same sentence, but there’s a first time for everything.
The attorney general this afternoon, on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary: “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.” Steely Dan, in their seventies song Rose Darling: “Why not chase it where it goes.”
It was reassuring to hear Garland declare his commitment to the chase. He’s long been taking heat for seemingly focusing exclusively on the various loons and goons and pawns who stormed the Capitol on Treason Day – while seemingly ignoring the heavy hitters who pumped the Big Lie into those feeble brains and whipped them to a froth. Most notably, people committed to salvaging our democracy have been wondering whether Garland is too weak to take on the fascist-in-exile if or when the evidence warrants.
Fortunately, he threw down the gauntlet today. The words were predictably dry, but their meaning was unmistakable: “The actions we’ve taken thus far will not be our last. The Justice Department remains committed to holding all Jan. 6 perpetrators at any level accountable under law – whether they were present that day, or otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy…as long as it takes and whatever it takes for justice to be done.” (Italics are mine.)
We don’t know, of course – nor, in all likelihood, does he at this point – whether his Justice investigators will build “an evidentiary foundation” (his words) that will ultimately lead to Trump. Can Trump be held “criminally responsible” for just sitting on his ass and watching his fans run rampant on his TV? Or can Garland broaden the focus, as well he should, to demonstrate that Trump’s pre-Jan. 6 pattern of behavior (pressuring his lame-duck Justice Department to “just say the election was corrupt”; pressuring Georgia election officials to “find” 11,000 votes that didn’t exist; fomenting baseless lawsuits that sought to overturn his defeat in key states) nurtured and fed the coup mentality that violently disrupted the peaceful transfer of power?
I’m no lawyer, but I can read. Federal criminal code – 18 U.S.C. 2384 – says that someone is guilty of seditious conspiracy if he or she conspires with others “to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States…by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States” – fin this case, the Electoral Count Act. I’ve also read the 1925 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says it’s a federal crime “to interfere with or obstruct one of (the) lawful government functions by deceit, craft, or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest.”
No wonder Trump canceled his Jan. 6 Mar-a-Lago press conference. Someone managed to convince him that if he opened his mouth, he might well have given Garland a short cut to the top.
Trump is like the cornered outlaw in the Steely Dan song Don’t Take Me Alive – “Got a case of dynamite /
I could hold out here all night” – and it’s imperative that Garland’s feds drag him to justice and hold him accountable for the authoritarian havoc he has wrought since his decisive ’20 defeat. Indeed, as constitutional law expert and former Justice official Laurence Tribe points out, “Garland stands as the final line of defense for our constitutional democracy. No prior attorney general has confronted so daunting a challenge.” Will he meet the moment?