No doubt the women are leading. But the men will be following in…due course.
Except that the following from yesterday’s edition of The Daily Beast might reflect the prevailing view in this regard:
Despite continued allegations of fraud and obstruction of justice claims against Donald Trump, somehow there are still only two people continuing to call the former president out—and neither one is a man. According to host Molly Jong-Fast in her last episode appearing on political podcast The New Abnormal, those people are New York state Attorney General Letitia Tish James and the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis.
‘They’re the only people who are doing this because everyone else is too much of a fucking coward,’ Jong-Fast tells co-host Andy Levy.
I began hailing the women over a year ago
With all due respect to The New Abnormal podcast, here is what I said on the June 12, 2021, edition of my Talking iPINIONS podcast in this regard:
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Most people know about the legal anvil New York Attorney General Cyrus Vance has a grand jury preparing to drop on his head. But there are two other attorneys general who have grand juries preparing equally damning indictments in what could amount to a legal pincer attack.
I have presaged Trump’s looming fate in this respect on a number of occasions, including in a podcast episode titled, “MAGA Madness: Trump Incites Insurrection at US Capitol” on January 9, 2021. And so I shall suffice to share the unbridled joy I feel knowing that each of those two attorneys general who now holds a damoclean sword over his head is a black woman, namely New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
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Why the men deserve praise too
Unlike the host of that popular podcast, I am convinced Vance’s successor, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, and Attorney General Merrick Garland will hold trump accountable.
I fully appreciate the crisis of confidence Bragg caused when, just six weeks on the job, his refusal to indict Trump forced the lead prosecutors on the case to resign in protest.
But I took Bragg at his word when he pleaded that, with all due respect to those prosecutors, the case just wasn’t ready. And, to paraphrase Emerson:
- When you charge this twice-impeached, coup-plotting, former commander-in-chief, you must convict him.
Prosecuting from the bottom up
As it happened, the same people who were carping about what a “coward” Bragg was were hurling judicial indignation at Garland for dithering. They felt the Jan. 6 Committee had already handed him on a silver platter all he needed to prosecute Trump.
Yet those same people are now hailing Garland for his FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, and for handing out subpoenas to his Jan. 6 co-conspirators like Christmas cards.
Of course, Garland began his Inspector Javert-like pursuit of Trump by prosecuting the MAGA idiots he incited to storm the US Capitol. His DOJ has arrested and charged 919 of them to date. Bragg is clearly executing a similar strategy to pursue him.
After all, Trump’s former lawyer (aka his “fixer”) Michael Cohen has not only done time for his crime but is now Bragg’s star witness against Trump. And his “most trusted lieutenant,” accountant Allen Weisselberg, copped a plea. It requires him not only to pay millions but to serve hard time. But Bragg is banking the latter will cause Weisselberg to break the Trump family’s code of omertà.
In any event, both Garland and Bragg might be more tortoise than hare, but they will get there. This is why I suspect people will be hailing Bragg too for lowering the anvil on Trump…in due course.
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