So much for that doomsday narrative
We keep hearing the popular pundit refrain that the Department of Justice can’t possibly be investigating this or that person in Trump world, because nothing has leaked out about it. But not one word ever leaked out about the DOJ’s criminal cases against the Oath Keepers leaders or Proud Boys leader – to the point that no one including them even knew the criminal cases were being built – until the moment they were arrested. So the “something would have leaked by now” test clearly doesn’t apply to the Garland DOJ.
Leaks generally occur when prosecutors try to pressure a target’s associates to flip on him, but instead the associates give the story to the media so the target knows what’s coming. It’s a sign of prosecutors being overly “aggressive” and/or desperate to the point of sloppiness, and it backfiring on them.
But the DOJ was so judicious in choosing which associates and underlings to pressure into cooperating against the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys leaders, not a single one of those associates or underlings appears to have gone running to those leaders (or to the media). That’s precision work.
We keep seeing this pattern from the Garland DOJ. No one knew it was probing Giuliani until it raided his home. No one knew it was probing Gaetz until he went public to try to fend off an alleged extortionist. Not one sign it was going to indict Bannon for contempt until it did.
So yes, it’s entirely reasonable to expect that this iteration of the DOJ could be building criminal cases against everyone in Trump world, including Donald Trump, without the details leaking to the media. The real question is whether the pundits who keep claiming otherwise are not looking at the big picture of how this DOJ operates, or whether they’re arbitrarily saying these kinds of doomsday things just to get on television. Either way, this particular doomsday theory simply doesn’t hold water.
