Summary

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report concluded that Donald Trump avoided prosecution for January 6-related charges due to his reelection.

The DOJ determined that prosecuting a sitting president violated constitutional protections, despite evidence strong enough to secure a conviction.

Smith noted that Trump’s return to office directly halted legal action and criticized existing DOJ policies and judicial interpretations, which shielded presidents from accountability.

The report underscores how voters, by reinstating Trump, indirectly prevented his criminal prosecution for actions threatening democratic institutions.

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    53 minutes ago

    It’s bad enough libs blame voters for their crappy genocidal candidates…

    But now voters are responsible for the completely disgusting punishment system?

    What will they blame voters for next?

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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      50 minutes ago

      Voters literally are to blame. Even if you’re of the opinion that voters that stayed home bear no responsibility, those who voted for Trump absolutely do. No democratic system can protect itself from its own voters.

  • GiddyGap@lemm.ee
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    4 hours ago

    In the US, if you have money and power, you can get away with anything. Land of the free (If you’re rich).

    • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      Since finding this 17 year old song linked somewhere on the fediverse awhile back I continue to be amazed how it just gets right to the root of nearly every problem we have. Start to finish, if you are angry at the current state of things (and not a maga), pretty good chance this song nails it for you.

      Welcome to the United Snakes

      Land of the thief home of the slave

      The grand imperial guard where the dollar is sacred and power is God

      (and it turned me into a bit of a Brother Ali fan)

  • nimble@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    4 hours ago

    For the report it links to WaPo which is behind a paywall (and shit). I get annoyed by articles that don’t link the full thing that they are discussing.

    If you want to read the full report then here is an article that links to it.

    Alternatively: direct link to report

  • rayyy@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Wrong. His LIES, Russia, China, Iran, nutcases and the corrupt Republican party save him.

    • SoftTeeth@lemmy.world
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      37 minutes ago

      And about 10mil white/hispanic men who stayed home despite voting for a democrat in the last election.

  • dx1@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    The fact that they didn’t secure a conviction for four years tells you all you need to know. Complete sham. Guilty as sin, but they wouldn’t put him in jail.

    • Podunk@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      To be fair, that was not jack smith’s fault. He did his job exactly as well as he was allowed. Blame the system, but in this instance, do not blame the man.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        11 hours ago

        Bullshit. The Dems wanted to run against Trump while he was being prosecuted and slow rolled the investigations because they thought they’d win.

      • dx1@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        Why not? He folded up everything as soon as the election was over. What the hell kind of integrity is that?

        • Soulg@sh.itjust.works
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          2 hours ago

          Because it was obvious that it would all be thrown out and he would be fired. Nothing would have changed if he kept going. Garland is at fault for waiting years to even appoint Smith.

          • dx1@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            Again - what the hell kind of integrity is that? Even if it’s going to be thrown out, you push towards the finish line.

        • Podunk@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          He had a job. He did the job. His run down of how things go does not exist in a vacvuum. Where do his responsibilities start and where do they stop?

          He did his job right. The follow-up is on someone else. And they failed. On epic levels. But dont blame him. He already paid the piper. The man gets credit for what he did. His report being ignored is no fault of his own.

    • Huschke@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      True, if anything he somehow would have dragged everything out until he was bed-ridden at which point he would have gotten house arrest which is laughable considering the size of his mansions.

    • rishado@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      If it makes you feel any better, they would’ve found some other reason if he lost the election.

    • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      I actually believe that this is how it should be. If it was a tyrannical government (but it’s not) citizens could vote in a president that was falsely accused or imprisoned (he is 100% guilty of that and much more).

      I do want to clarify that I also believe Trump and the GOP will either destroy or renew (through third party actions) the USA as we know it and if they didn’t constantly break the law this could be a good precedent.

      But the people voted and he got both popular and electoral votes. The people want the grifter. If it turns out low elo meddled with the results, well, see that third party actions comment.

      • Furbag@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I understand the desire of people who don’t want to see accusations like this be used as a political weapon, but the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite direction here. Trump is using his status as a political candidate and now president-elect to sidestep the judicial process entirely.

        It’s one thing to say you can be president even from a prison cell if the electorate so wills it. It’s another to say that because he was voted to be president, we can’t even put him up for a trial to determine guilt or innocence by a jury of his peers.

        And now we’ll probably never know the answer to that.

        • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          It’s a completely fucked up situation to be sure. He was already found guilty of 34/34 felonies he was charged with. MAGA reaction? Put a bumper sticker on their car that says “I’m voting for the felon” right next to their thin blue line sticker. These insurrection charges should have been brought up years ago, but I’m not sure it would have changed anyone’s opinion. Like you said, we’ll never know.

  • neuracnu@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    16 hours ago

    I think there is some deeply cynical logic, or a horrifying game of chicken, being played by Democratic leaders here.

    Let’s say Jack Smith is given the go-ahead to investigate and prosecute Trump as fast as he possibly could (while building a bullet-proof case for conviction). With all the legal resources (not to mention Republican-friendly judges) available for Trump to leverage, it’s safe to say that Smith certainly would not have been able to complete a full trial and secure a conviction before the 2024 election. But perhaps one could have been under-way.

    A Trump trial for election interference in the middle of 2024 would have been a galvanizing force for his base, and likely cause his popularity among like-minded folks to surge and likely help his polling numbers. After all, conservatives love their persecution complexes and already live in a hazy fantasy world where their guy can do no wrong. So this doesn’t help Democrats.

    If Trump were to be acquitted, this would obviously be credibility kryptonite for Democrats, so that’s a bad outcome. And if Trump were to be convicted, I believe there is genuine concern among top Democrats that all the armed crazies (including those in the police, government positions and military) might do a real insurrection this time as opposed to the world’s shittiest flash mob.

    So what’s a cynical Democratic operator to do? Have Smith slow-walk the investigation and take his time to make it immaculate. Have the election without using litigation to get in Trump’s way and hope that people don’t make a shitty choice. If they do, they’ll get what they paid for: another four years of ridiculous chaos. These would represent setbacks and lost ground for Democratic causes, but their patrons will figure out how to make it profitable in the meantime and be there to fund a comeback when the American people become exhausted by the bullshit. Let him burn himself out in the spotlight, further expose himself as a corrupt fool, letting his support curdle naturally rather than fighting him and his supporters at their strongest.

    This scenario presumes several deeply horrifying and risky ideas:

    1. No one who matters will get hurt in the next four years. Are you rich? Are you a middle-class cis-het-white person? Do you not live in Palestine, Ukraine or Taiwan? You’ll ride this out. The poor and the queers have nowhere else to turn, so they’ll eat shit and be right back on the Democrat’s side next time around (unless they have money, of course).

    2. Trump and his cronies will be too inept to dismantle American democracy before the next election.

    I’m no card player, but this all seems like a terrible gamble to me.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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      5 hours ago

      Or, do the right thing and prosecute him, even if it’s bad for them politically.

      Now it’s terrible for them politically and terrible for the country and the world.

    • 474D@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      The first half here doesn’t really track because Trump’s numbers didn’t really change. He had a similar amount of voters as usual, and the Democrats came up short. I don’t think there could have been a substantial boost for him, his people are solid regardless of whatever he says or goes through.

      The second half, yeah that makes sense, but now we see happens when Democrats “play by the rules” or try to play it safe… They lose. It’s less about trump and more that they didn’t capture voters. We needed Kamala to distance herself from Biden but she wanted to be “nice”. People are struggling, no one feels the economy is great, they left progressives behind, and here we are now. Even if progressives are only 10-20% of the party, you NEED them to win

    • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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      15 hours ago

      I’ve had similar thoughts myself.

      Basically, you can’t use a legal process to dispose of someone that the voting public want to be president.

      • Doomsider@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Only because we apparently hold politicians to no real standards. Incoming rapists alert, but hey who really cares because there is no law against it and convictions are hard to come by. I mean at this point Aotus probably won’t consider you unless you are a confirmed rapist. Birds of a feather.

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      Y’all think there’s a lot more order to the world than there really is. Really it’s just a simple combination of people not wanting to step in front of the moving train, and those that do didn’t have the power to stop it. People like Merrick Garland and Robert Mueller are likely the most responsible without being complicit. They refused to be leaders. They were trying as hard as they could to downplay current events and keep some odd kind of status quo.

      I understand that they wanted the government of the United States to seem stable and democratic. They wanted stay out of everything as hard as they could, and they failed to do their jobs in the process.

      Most everyone else did what they felt they could do without destabilizing the government and while respecting the vote of the people. It’s unclear if things go better or worse for the country if Biden takes drastic action. It’s really hard to say “just this one time” to removing the president-elect from his office. Though I think a Vance presidency would have been better for all involved.

      It’s not some grand conspiracy. It’s mostly a failure of the American public.

  • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    And by “voters” he means democratic city polling place bomb threats, Elon Musk & Starlink, and a 2 year Merrick Garland delay.

  • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    18 hours ago

    …and yet there won’t be thousands of people protesting his inauguration or anything the fuck else.

    The people in this country have been broken, and now they’re just gonna lay over and take it.

    We’re a long way from February 15th, 2003.

    Face it, American citizens, we’re fucking cooked.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    I’m glad to hear this guy skates because a whole lot of low-info voters made protest votes, sat out, or even voted for donvict because “both sides” or other stupid narratives.