...it would be impossible to be at the point where we have the two grand juries pushing to the end of their probes without the work Garland's team did at the start.
Something not discussed lately is how DOJ paved the way for WH administration officials to testify before Congress.
NYT, Nov. 2021:
The Justice Department notified former officials that they could testify to the various committees investigating the Trump administration’s efforts to subvert the results of the presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, according to a letter obtained by The New York Times.
Witnesses can give “unrestricted testimony” to the House Oversight and Reform Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, the department said. Both panels are scrutinizing the bid by officials in the Trump White House to force the Justice Department to undermine President Biden’s victory, as well as the events leading up to the Capitol riot, as Congress convened to formally tally the electoral results.
The officials learned in May that they could provide information about how the department planned for and responded to the vote certification on Jan. 6, according to the letter. The department determines whether current or former officials can respond to requests for testimony on a case-by-case basis, and the letters to former officials leaves unclear whether the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot has made such a request.
“The extraordinary events in this matter constitute exceptional circumstances warranting an accommodation to Congress,” Bradley Weinsheimer, a top career official in the deputy attorney general’s office wrote, noting that the information sought by Congress was directly related to the question of whether Mr. Trump tried to use the Justice Department to advance his “personal political interests.”
The department told former officials that they could provide unrestricted testimony “so long as the testimony is confined to the scope of the interviews set forth by the committees” and does not reveal grand-jury information, classified information or pending criminal cases.
It's easy to point to the DOJ's relative silence early in their investigations about the complicity or culpability of Trump and his WH staff in the Jan. 6 insurrection and claim nothing was being done. But you don't get rapid rulings knocking down privilege claims like ducks in a row without showing courts evidence of serious crimes committed is being obscured.
You don't get that evidence by sitting on your hands in 2021, as many have accused DOJ of doing. You get to this point of actually pressuring top Trump officials, including the former president, by doing quiet, behind the scenes groundwork.
For every top Trump official who makes the news by balking and posturing against the DOJ, a dozen or more are likely to be complying behind the breaking news and public court actions. That's what's brought us to this point where appeals judges are dismissing challenges to testifying to the DOJ grand juries as fast as they can draft the rulings.
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