See,

1) Laurence H. Tribe, Barbara McQuade and Joyce White Vance,
“Here’s a roadmap for the Justice Department to follow in investigating Trump,” Washington Post, August 5, 2021. (9:10 a.m. EDT);

2) “Should Trump be indicted?,” The Trenchant Observer, August 2, 2021.

Today the leading constitutional law scholar of his generation, Lawrence H. Tribe, professor emiritus at Harvard Law School, and two other distinguished legal scholars, broke the democratic wall of silence regarding the investigation and prosecution of  Donald Trump for his many apparent crimes related to the November 2020 election, the January 6, 2021 insurrention, and, more generally, the conspiracy of Trump and Republican legislators and officials to overthrow the election and the Constitution of the United States.

The bubble of silence is pierced. While Tribe, McQuade, and Vance address only issues related to the election and its aftermath, we all should be asking why Merrick Garland and his Justice Department are not prosecuting Donald Trump for the ten cases of obstruction of justice investigated by Robert Mueller and detailed in the his Report.

We should also be asking about why Trump is not being prosecuted for the obvious obstruction of justice he committed in threatening and retaliating against witnesses who testified against him in the two impeachment investigations. These apparent crimes were committed in full public view.

Is the Democratic strategy just to let the statute of limitations run out, in effect introducing a new, shorter, de facto statute of limitations for crimes by high current or former government officials?

It will be interesting to see how Garland, the DOJ, and Democratic leaders react to the op-ed article by Tribe, McQuade, and Vance. Their reactions will tell us a lot about the Democratic conspiracy (in the general sense, not in the criminal sense) to avoid talking about prosecuting Trump and his co-conspirators.

Do they want to bow to political and other non-legal considerations in order to not prosecute Trump, thereby establishing, however inadvertently, a new political principle of impunity for crimes committed by high government officials?

See,

1) “After Trump’s Senate acquittal, the urgent need to reaffirm core values and the Rule of Law,” The Trenchant Observer,” February 3, 2020;

2) “After witness retaliation, Democrats should open impeachment inquiry on obstruction of justice,” The Trenchant Observer, February 8, 2020.

In what an experienced Washington hand might suspect was an attempt to divert attention from the thrust of the questioms raised by Tribe and his co-authors, Merrick Garland published an op-ed in the Washington Post later today, at 6:09 p.m. EDT, entitled, “It is time for Congress to act again to protect the right to vote,” Washington Post, August 5, 2021.

While the subject of Garland’s piece is of great importance, could the timing of its publication today be more than a pure coincidence? Our experienced Washington hand might well respond, “Perhaps.”

The Trenchant Observer