Seriosly, why?

  • @[email protected]
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    6 days ago

    I think it’s important to remember that Biden was, perhaps more than any president in my lifetime (and I’m an old man), an institutionalist. He was a senator for just about forever, then the VP for 8 years. He was 78 years old when he became president. He is an old school liberal Catholic, a very nearly extinct person in the Catholic and Christian spheres.

    I think he saw his presidency as a repudiation of right wing reactionary politics. His election, in his mind, was in large part a call to what he saw as the original intent and purpose of the executive branch. To put it plainly, he saw himself as elected because America rejected the politicization of government under Trump. Included under that umbrella of beliefs about the purpose of the executive was the unalienable requirement that the executive not direct the FBI to investigate the opposing political party. Remember, Joe Biden was a senator when Nixon resigned. He was there when Nixon was using the executive branch to attack Democrats.

    Biden appointed Garland to the DOJ. Garland’s record was perfectly fine and appeared well suited to the role, but his biggest strengths (in Biden’s mind) was his nonpartisanship and his conservative view of government. By conservative I mean staying within the lines of what the DOJ should be doing, a cautious view of the use of DOJ power. Again, this was done in reaction to Trump and his… let’s call it “expansive” view of government power. In Biden’s mind, he was righting the ship.

    And Garland was exactly as advertised, to a maddening degree. He was cautious to the point of being timid. He refused to throw the weight of the DOJ into investigations with political implications without reaching an imaginary bar of fairness that just isn’t realistic. You saw it in the Jan 6th investigations. You saw it in the Kushner deals (and all of the Trump family deals which are obviously dirty). You saw it in Garland’s unwillingness to take on wildly politicized federal prosecutor offices because doing so would be political interference (in his mind). You saw it when Robert Hur took unprofessionalism and partisanship to the absolute extreme when attacking Biden under the guise of a special counsel appointment and Garland did nothing because instiutionalism in his mind meant not interfering with the process.

    And you saw it in the Epstein case.

    Garland did everything by the book to an absurd degree that ended up paralyzing justice. Biden didn’t touch Garland or any of it because he believes doing so was itself an injustice, even if Garland was wrong to handle it the way he did. In Biden’s mind, the president should not have the power to demand the DOJ take action in a specific case like the Epstein case, especially if there’s political implications.

      • @[email protected]
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        205 days ago

        depends on what you think the job was

        keep the status quo? sure, right guy

        blow the terroristic american right wing apart so it’ll be another half century before it reforms? wrong guy

      • Ginny [they/she]
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        86 days ago

        I think a more accurate TL;DR is that Garland was the wrong guy for the job, but the Biden thing is more broadly true, too.

        • @[email protected]
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          55 days ago

          THIS level of political nuance qualifies as torture? He boiled it down for us into TWO men’s decisions and delivered it in like 300 words.

          Yeah, we’re cooked.

    • @[email protected]
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      46 days ago

      This is the actual answer, cutting right through the smoke and mirrors and bullshit. Anyone who had the displeasure of reading through the flight logs that were available in their entirety online almost a year ago and probably still are: saw just what names pop up, often multiple times. This is the most bipartisan issue there ever was, so NOBODY in power wants to touch it.

  • @[email protected]
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    1647 days ago

    Legal Eagle just released a video about “the real Epstein files”. The main point they covered in the video is victim impact. The victims could be threatened and harassed because of the info.

    Another point not covered is that criminal case info is typically not disclosed. Releasing a list of accused perpetrators (i.e. pedophiles/child rapists) encourages vigilante justice. It also interferes with any ongoing investigations, which should (at least in theory) still be ongoing.

    I don’t want Trump to release the case info. I want his DOJ to announce charges against people like Les Wexner, based on that info. And I want it to not just be his political enemies and bullshit lies.

      • AmidFuror
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        307 days ago

        Dig into the bus crash more. It was minor, but Giuffre then checked herself into the hospital and made pretty bizarre claims about her health. Then she went home and killed herself shortly after.

        There was nothing nefarious about the crash, and it revealed she was having mental health issues.

    • @[email protected]
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      207 days ago

      Did they cover the part about how Biden’s DOJ had absolutely no fucking excuse to take that long to prosecute?

      • snooggums
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        97 days ago

        We can’t seem like we are making it political because he’s running for office or some bullshit was always the excuse.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 days ago

          Yet they waited 3.5 years until right after he won the Republican nomination to bother charging him and that was just for the Jan 6th bullshit let alone the Epstein stuff.

          • snooggums
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            107 days ago

            He should have been tossed in jail by February for insurrection. The whole hand wringing about ‘appearances’ excuse is why we can’t hold anyone in power accountable.

            • @[email protected]
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              57 days ago

              Yeah the sycophants are always quick to make up a million excuses why Democrats can’t ever accomplish anything they talk about, while simultaneously pretending they’re “fighting fascism” by supporting this farce.

      • socsa
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        67 days ago

        There probably just isn’t the kind of direct evidence people imagine. You can’t prosecute people just for associating with a creep.

        • @[email protected]
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          47 days ago

          I specifically mentioned Les Wexner for a reason. While the public information includes an absolute ton of red flags, and it’s very likely that he bought child prostitutes, it doesn’t reach the level proof beyond a reasonable doubt. IOW, it’s unlikely to reach a conviction in court.

          These people are also rich enough to drag out a court case for decades, even longer than the government. As such, they aren’t likely to take a plea agreement that’s more than a slap on the wrist and without admitting anything serious.

        • @[email protected]
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          7 days ago

          Okay, fine. Then if there was never going to be a prosecution, then there was no impediment to the Biden admin releasing the files.

          So, which is it: did the Biden administration fuck up by slow-walking the prosecution, or did the Biden administration fuck up by failing to release the files even when it had no intention of prosecuting? Those are the only options!

    • @[email protected]
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      197 days ago

      I very much get the first point. Victims need to be protected at all costs. Even if it means the public doesn’t get to know things.

      To the second point, the way Trump handled it felt very much like “case closed, nothing to see here”. This does not feel like justice is going to be served.

  • @[email protected]
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    115 days ago

    Too many influential and very rich on there most likely. Among all the Republicans probably also a few democrats because we know there are quite a few assholes among those too.

  • @[email protected]
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    127 days ago

    Because “High Road” and “Moral Victories” were their focus and always pretend to act surprised when the goal posts are moved by the republicans. At least that’s one reason.

      • @[email protected]
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        7 days ago

        I agree. But that whole honor system and gentleman’s agreements went right out the window in 2016. They had 4 years to see that coming and really didn’t do much to stop it; not even a slick behind the scenes move. Just sat there and let it happen. Had an ace in their sleeve and decided to keep it in a locked up in a safe for the Donvict to crack right open.

  • I Cast Fist
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    147 days ago

    I think the real question is: why isn’t anyone on the FBI or whatever agency is responsible for that, willing to just throw that shit onto the internet?

  • @[email protected]
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    7 days ago

    Sorry to answer with other questions, but as a foreigner I have to. Do investigations like this can just be published by the POTUS? In my country, it would be the sole decision of the AG, and they would probably won’t publish anything because it could end up damaging the investigation. Or so they’d say.

    It’s really baffling the power of the current POTUS, having all the power of the state in his hands. To me, he just telling Pamela Bondi what to do in such a delicate matter feels just wrong, as in lacking the due seriousness on the matter, utterly sloppy and populist in a bad manner.

    • @[email protected]
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      117 days ago

      the president of the US doesn’t have as much power as our current one thinks he has. It’s just that no one involved in the checks and balances procedure has the balls to stand up to him and say “no,” or they don’t have the power to do so in a way that would impact anything. And the ones that do decided just before the 2024 election that a sitting president can’t be charged with any illegal shit he did as president, so even the ones that CAN say no to him just get brushed off or outright told “fuck you”

      • @[email protected]
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        27 days ago

        They don’t have the power to say “No” because they probably have a big shitty laundry list of their own they want to hide.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 days ago

      One of the recurring themes I keep coming back to in all this is that the US has a uniquely bad situation with regard to its Constitution. We worship it as an infallible and complete guide to running a democratic republic, but really it’s extremely old, extremely vague, and depends on goodwill and sensible interpretation to function. We have neither the explicit understanding that everything is old AF and cobbled together and dependent upon custom and moderating tyrannical sensibilities like the British, nor the unwieldy but straightforward comprehensiveness of EU treaties and certain other lengthy modern written constitutions.

      To me, him just telling Pamela Bondi what to do in such a delicate matter feels just wrong, as in lacking the due seriousness on the matter, utterly sloppy and populist in a bad manner.

      This feeling you have is exactly how presidents of either party would have felt for the last 80-100 years. The idea of a largely independent Department of Justice was considered eminently sensible and moral and even to the realpolitik set it provided outer bounds of what was politically possible and so they would nudge and tug at the edges, but never blow right past it, lest they suffer Nixon’s fate. I think we make a mistake to say that Trump is stupid in a binary yes/no sense, but he is deeply uncurious about things that don’t interest him, like democratic norms, so when people tell him “The Constitution doesn’t actually say that,” his eyes gleam and he just does whatever he might get away with. And because we have a Supreme Court dominated by the idea that the US Constitution is more akin to a piece of computer code than a framework for sensible governance, they simply throw up their hands and say, “whelp, it didn’t SAY that the administration of justice should be handled with integrity, so guess we makin’ a fascism now.” Better vote them out, except oh wait the Constitution also doesn’t say you can’t fuck with the elections either.

      One of my anxious worries lately is that at the end of this term, Trump will look at our term limits amendment and parse the verbiage with a simple literalism and Clarence Thomas et al will back him up. It says you can’t be elected president more than twice, so why not simply run for VP and then have your patsy resign five minutes after swearing in? After all, we’re mindless textualists now. We didn’t want an FDR type getting overly entrenched in the machinery of power, but we clearly meant to allow loopholes that are significantly less democratic!

    • @[email protected]
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      47 days ago

      I’m my country, it works be the sole decision of the AG

      It works like that… but the problem is effectively we give the president the power to fire and replace the AG. So… in short, the AG is hand picked by the president and then approved by congress.

      With a crazy president like this that effectively has 100% of his party members in congress intimidated to back every one of his picks, the AG is basically his hand picked employee.

    • @[email protected]
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      47 days ago

      Yes and no.

      In the US the Judicial branch is responsible for the the courts and interpretation of the law / constitution, but the Executive branch is responsible for the execution / enforcement of the law. I think that in other parts of the world it is common for the AG to be part of the Judicial branch, but here they are part of the Executive branch.

      As I understand it, there are parts of these investigations/prosecutions that the AG can release under their own authority (or by direction of the President) but other parts that are under seal and require authorization from the courts.

  • @[email protected]
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    176 days ago

    Because spineless Establishment Dems have some obsession with “playing nice,” even with vicious MAGA Nazi enemies. I have a million questions, starting with:

    Why didn’t Biden have HitlerPig and his henchmen arrested within the first 60 seconds after his Inauguration?

    • @[email protected]
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      26 days ago

      Because spineless Establishment Dems have some obsession with "playing nice insider trading

      Ftfy.

      The Dem party is known as the party of insider trading after all!

  • @[email protected]
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    457 days ago

    First, Bill Clinton is almost certainly all over them, and older Democrats still think of the Clintons as the epitome of Democratic success. Some of the old guard is still trying to push focus away from the Epstien files. Just two days ago, Nancy Pelosi was calling the Epstien files a distraction, which is a bat-shit crazy thing to say about evidence that could prove that your opponent was involved in a pedophile ring.

    Second, Epstien probably has some sort of ties to the intelligence community. I don’t know that I believe all these stories about him being a secret Mossad asset, but I think its very possible that the someone in the CIA was using him. Alex Acosta, who prosecuted Epstien in 2008, claimed that he was told to back off because he, “belonged to intelligence,” and they’re clearly withholding a lot of information, there’s definitely something they don’t want people to know. Anyway, since 9/11, the Democrats and Republicans have had basically the same position on the intelligence community (essentially, abject deference), so if the CIA says that it would be a national security risk to release the files, the Democrats aren’t going to release the files.

    • @[email protected]
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      15 days ago

      Because they’re assholes.

      Oh, you mean dems are assholes too…?

      Are you one of those ‘both parties are the same’ folks?

      • Swordgeek
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        75 days ago

        I think you missed the point.

        Trump won’t release them because his name (and others in the GOP) is all over it and he could be facing actual prison time.

        The Democrats didn’t because…well, we know that Clinton at least was involved with Epstein. I’m sure many others were as well.

        Besides which, other powerful people outside of politics are likely to have put strong pressure on the US to keep them locked up (e.g. Prince Andrew).

        The problem isn’t one party or the other, and it’s not that “all parties are the same,” but in this particular case it IS almost guaranteed that too many people are named and shamed for any group in power to release them.

      • @[email protected]
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        35 days ago

        It’s not just because they’re assholes, it’s because a significant portion of them are also pedophiles. Pedos protecting pedos.

  • @[email protected]
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    165 days ago

    Because the files vaguely implicate a lot of influential oligarchs who donate to both sides.

    We know Trump hung out with Epstein, there are pictures and testimony. It simply doesn’t move the needle away from the right. He’s just buying trouble.

    gdamn thing should have been in the public from day one.

  • @[email protected]
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    55 days ago

    Because they are the other side of the same coin as Republicans. Neither side wanna help us much. One side actively trying to make it worse for us while the other one is happy we are living shit but don’t want it worse.

  • @[email protected]
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    5 days ago
    1. Donors - some donors are implicated - eg Bill Gates
    2. Bill Clinton - Bill Clinton is a known associate, former president
    3. Celebrities/Press - Steven Pinker and a lot of the other idiots that dems like to pretend are smart and exceptional are implicated.
    4. if Dems released it it would probably be easier for trump etc to dismiss allegations as a smear
    5. Dems did prosecute Maxwell but its not clear anyone else can be charged.

    Its clearly stupid to not have released a list of epstein’s friends and been like “these people are wanted for questioning”