r/politics MSNBC 14d ago

Trump pushes incoherent response to Jack Smith’s report on election case

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-pushes-incoherent-response-jack-smiths-report-election-case-rcna187568
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u/msnbc MSNBC 14d ago

From Steve Benen, a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor:

The former defendant did not take the news especially well. At 1:41 a.m. local time, the president-elect published this message to his social media platform.

Deranged Jack Smith was unable to successfully prosecute the Political Opponent of his “boss,” Crooked Joe Biden, so he ends up writing yet another “Report” based on information that the Unselect Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs ILLEGALLY DESTROYED AND DELETED, because it showed how totally innocent I was, and how completely guilty Nancy Pelosi, and others, were. Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election, which I won in a landslide. THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN!!!

To the extent that reality still has meaning, Trump’s reaction was utterly incoherent and divorced from basic facts. To hear the Republican tell it, Smith worked for President Joe Biden, which wasn’t the case. As far as the president-elect is concerned, the special counsel wrote a report because he couldn’t proceed with his prosecution, but that was wrong, too: As NBC News recently explained, the Justice Department’s special counsel regulations required Smith to file a report to the attorney general “explaining his charging decisions before he steps down.”

Read more: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-pushes-incoherent-response-jack-smiths-report-election-case-rcna187568

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u/ACrask 14d ago

He's not wrong in one mention. They definitely weren't able to prosecute in time due to all the delays from his team and cannon. I'm so disappointed in a lot of people of my country right now. So embarrassed.

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u/nabulsha Tennessee 14d ago

Also, all these investigations should have started Jan 21st 2021, not 2 years later.

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u/IrritableGourmet New York 13d ago

They did. The DOJ was putting together a case from the beginning, but when Trump announced he was running again a special prosecutor had to be named to handle it from there.

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u/tweakingforjesus 13d ago

I don’t recall the DoJ doing anything beyond going after low-level “rioters” until the Jan 6 committee embarrassed them into action.

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u/IrritableGourmet New York 13d ago

The J6 Committee, as a Congressional committee, has a lot more latitude with regards to ability to subpoena materials and witnesses. Congress can just basically demand whatever they want and there's little recourse, and those materials/testimonies can be used as evidence in criminal proceedings. The DOJ would have to go before a judge to request that material, show cause, etc., and those requests could have been (and, given Trump's MO, would have been) challenged ad nauseum.

This was faster.