The media sideshow over the Fulton County grand jury report is getting sillier than ever
Back when the Fulton County Georgia special grand jury issued its final report, I warned you that even as District Attorney Fani Willis was quietly presenting that report to a regular grand jury for the purpose of indicting Donald Trump and his co-conspirators, the media would spin up a nonsensical sideshow about the report instead. Sure enough, the media’s obsession with this rather unimportant report has now reached almost hysterical levels.
Major media outlets are now in court, trying to convince the judge to release the special grand jury report before Willis can even bring indictments. But there was always a literally zero chance that would happen, as the judge was never going to do that while the indictment process was still playing out. Now the judge has agreed to release the introduction and conclusion of the report later this week, which is really not a story – but the media is acting like it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened.
Spoiler alert: the portions of the report that the judge releases this week will not tell us who’s being indicted. The indictments will tell us who’s being indicted. So when the judge releases these not particularly interesting parts of the report this week, I don’t even want to think about the ridiculous spin that the media will place on it. Will the media insist that the lack of anything juicy means that there’s no case and the indictments are doomed? Or will the media claim that the released parts of the report are proof that Trump is guilty, and then insist we’re all doomed because Willis is supposedly refusing to indict him? Either way, you can see the media’s bullshit coming.
This report, and its release, or non-release, or partial release, are simply not a story. However the report saga plays out, it will have literally zero impact on the indictment process. That’s just not how anything works. The reality is that once the report was done, Willis started the process of presenting the report to a regular grand jury so it can bring indictments, and those indictments will be out soon. In the meantime, nothing that’s released or not released from the report will have any impact on anything.
But those facts don’t work for the media, of course. There’s no way for the media to gain any knowledge about Willis’ indictment process while it’s playing out in some secret grand jury room, so even as that process plays out, there’s nothing for the media to say about it. So instead the media decided to create a sideshow, complete with all kinds of fictional drama and suspense, around something as stupid as a mere transactional report that has no chance of having any impact on anything, and won’t tell us anything prior to the indictments.
Again, the indictments will tell the story, not some report. We’re talking about INDICTMENTS here. Criminal indictments against Donald Trump and his co-conspirators. Indictments mean criminal trials and prison sentences. This is the real story here. It always has been. Trump being indicted is the story of the century. But it’s not a daily story right now, because it’s all playing out in some secret room. So the media has invented some other imaginary story instead, to keep you in suspense – and thus glued to your screen – until the indictments drop.
If anything, the one piece of news out of Monday’s hearing is that the indictment process is clearly still totally on track. The judge – who unlike cable news audiences, actually knows how these kinds of legal processes work – is clearly satisfied that the indictments are coming within an “imminent” timeframe. The media knows it too. But if the media just admits that this report is irrelevant, and that indictments are coming soon, you’ll stop tuning in until the indictments do happen. So the media is going to keep bullshitting you in the meantime, with ever growing doomsday hype about this irrelevant report. And the more obviously close we get to Trump’s indictment, the more hyperbolic the media’s bullshit will become. In the meantime, Trump is very clearly being indicted in Georgia (and elsewhere). The rest is just noise.
