CNN is reporting that the January 6 pipe bomb suspect believed the 2020 election had been stolen.
Breitbart is reporting that the suspect is Black.
Same old, same old. Now we know why the DoJ crew weren’t talking about motivations yesterday. Or today, for that matter. The truth leaked out. But this has got to be a huge disappointment for MAGA, which fervently believed that “the pipe bombs were an inside job by deep-state law enforcement and intelligence officials intended to discredit the far right” it says here. Nope; the alleged perp is a Trump supporter, albeit a Black one.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino had pushed a theory that the FBI (under Biden) had been hiding the perpetrator. Now he’s disowned that theory. Here is his excuse:
“Listen I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” Bongino said. “That’s clear. And one day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
Such a hindrance, those fact things.
As to why it took so long to identify a subject — I don’t know. Marcy Wheeler is worth reading on this point. A lot about this is still very murky, seems to me.
I’ve spent a large part of this week straightening out some insurance issues. I believe this is accomplished, but I’m exhausted. I have been attempting to follow all the trouble Pete Hegseth is in. The poor guy was right in the middle of his third excuse/gaslight for why he wasn’t responsible for the “second strike” order, and then the Pentagon Inspector General released the findings of the “Signalgate” investigation. Yet he still has a job. How much longer, I wonder? It’s up to Trump, unfortunately, and Trump probably thinks Pete’s boat snuff videos are cool and plans to keep him.
But with my flagging energy I do try to imagine where Pete goes next. When the hammer falls maybe Fox News will take him back. But I can’t see many people lining up to hire him. Thirty years from now somebody may spot a seedy, inebriated wreck in a bar someplace and recognize the former SecDef.
And then there’s the SCOTUS. Having greenlit political gerrymandering (see “Supreme Court Just Okayed One Neat Trick to Illegally Gerrymander Your State” by Kate Riga at TPM), now they’ve taken up birthright citizenship and will rule on it for real this time. This is terrifying.
President Donald Trump unleashed an early Friday rant where he claimed Democrats were looking to obliterate the Supreme Court in a bizarre social media post. …
… “The Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote. “They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS.”
Trump seems to have forgotten he was calling for an end to the filibuster to end the shutdown just a few weeks ago.
“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” Trump wrote, despite zero evidence.
“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen,” the president continued. “Our Country is now in very good hands.”
No need for twenty-one. Fifteen works. Six more liberals.
Update: See Paul Waldman, Democrats Need to Treat the Supreme Court Like the Villain It Is
See also The President Who Never Grew Up.
I can, unfortunately, imagine situations in which Merrick Garland chose not to pursue too deep an investigation into such an explosive allegation, during the run up to the election.
And I'm not saying he had no reason to be concerned! "Oh-ho!" Trump supporters would say "they are charging one of the good and loyal election deniers in this FRAUD!!!" And then, you have to wonder how badly they'll chop apart the prosecution theory, in the public press, before the trial?
The answer is supposed to be "tell the truth and shame the devil," but you can't do that when "the truth" is merely something "experts say," and Republicans say differently, so, you know. It's just some ethics experts who say murder on the high seas is illegal, but the Trump administration insists it's legal, if they are sufficiently suspected of being drug runners. Of course, the Trump administration knows it's not illegal to lie to journalist, about whether a crime is legal or not….
It's a crazy, almost farcially fascist, nation we live in. And so much of the world is down with the bootlicking.
Sigh. Apologies, I'm in a lot of pain, and on a lot of Wedding Cake (marijuana strain), so if I'm babbly, well… that's mostly it.
I'd like to see the dates on the different aspects of the investigation. How much was collected under Garland? Was it ever presented and considered? Is there a flaw to the prosecution that will create "reasonable doubt"? The pre-Trump standard is to not take a case to a Grand Jury unless there's a likelyhood of getting a conviction if it went to court. This standard used to be so solid that only 3% of federal prosecutions went to trial.
The Wheeler article suggests they can place the perp at the scene(s) in the time frame. Some of the components are consistent with stuff the perp may have purchased. I didn't get from the Wheeler article that they have him in possession of the explosives. (If I was on the jury, that would bother me.) But I don't know what I don't know.
If this guy was on the Trump train, that's going to be VERY inconvenient. How much other stuff is out there on social media that will connect the perp with pro-Trump conspiracy theories may get him a pass. (Charges dropped.)
Regarding the war crime of murdering helpless shipwreck victims… I suspect Trump is working overtime to get Republicans to bury it. Whiskey Pete seems to have an arrangement with Admiral Bradley to coordinate their stories so they both survive the investigation. It looks like one Admiral was forced out by Pete for opposing the operation. Was Bradley assured that the Administration would provide legal cover up to and including a presidential pardon if questions were asked? Is the previous promise now conditional on sticking to whatever stroy line they've settled on today? "We've got your back." isn't the guarantee Bradley thought it was.
If Bradley resigns, it will be an attempt to placate Congress and leave Pete in his position. Trump may be aware that if Pete gets the axe, there won't be a long line of people interested in the job who can be approved by the Senate, because the GOP is nervous about the election and repeated incompetence of the same magnitude will put the Senate at risk in the next few years. They may take oversight seriously fairly soon.
You can count the times I've agreed with Trump on my thumbs, but if the USSC invalidates birthright citizenship, even slightly, I think Democrats might do what Trump fears in 2028. It can't happen on day one, because Congress would have to pass a law to expand the USSC. But invalidating the fillibuster would allow that law to get past the GOP. Democrats in the Senate do nnot want to do it, but iif Trump starts invalidating some citizenships to send protesters to helholes in Africa to be tortured with the blessing of the USSC, that could do it.
Hope you feel better soon, Maha.
My understanding is that the DoJ had collected a huge amount of data in search of the bomber, but the humans analyzing the data couldn't pick up on any patterns. I believe they applied some AI thngie to the job, and a suspect emerged.
Just to let the crew here know my position on the military kinetic strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats:
Yes, the war crime angle applies to the strikes after the first strike, when a couple of survivors were clinging to the wreckage. IMO any subsequent strikes (after the first successful strike) are war crimes.
But we must avoid getting taken down a rabbit hole into debating the subsequent strike thing (the administration will, of course, debate this); instead, IMO any military strike at all that kills suspected drug traffickers is murder. We need to hit this hard, over and over. Drug trafficking is a crime, not an act of war. Therefore killing people on these boats is murder.
If we let it slide because…drug trafficking is really bad, then by extension, then the US military can summarily execute any US citizen suspected of a crime.
Let's be freaking clear about this: using the US military to execute suspected criminals without due process is nowhere even close to okay.
Blurring any distinction between war and crime is essential if you plan to use troops against civilians for resistance you claim is a crime.
Yep. For example, if you claim the insurrection act can be invoked for speech critical of the government.
When the current administration heard the adage that the first casualty of war was the truth, they were obsessed with starting one it seems.
They all seem truth averse. It has gotten to the point of sickening.