Thread by @PalmerReport

"If the DOJ were investigating Trump world we'd know it because it would leak. No leaks means there's no probe!"

This is an increasingly common narrative from legal experts who are trying to convince us that the DOJ is doing "nothing." But it's actually a pretty silly rationale.

Look at the moves the DOJ has taken against Trump world.

No one even knew there was a probe into Trump money man Tom Barrack until he was indicted.

The Gaetz probe didn't become public until someone tried to extort Gaetz over it, and then Gaetz himself went public with it.

No one knew the DOJ's case against Rudy Giuliani had been restored to active status until the Feds showed up at his door and raided his home. All that grand jury activity against Rudy, leading up to the raid, never leaked.

"But if the DOJ were subpoenaing Trump associates to try to get to Trump, we'd know it because they'd be leaking it to the media out of spite!"

Not necessarily how things work. Most folks subpoenaed by a grand jury in a criminal case quietly cover their ass, not run their mouth.

For instance, the 1/6 committee says it's interviewed like 300 of lower / mid level people while building its case against Trump. Maybe four of those 300 names have leaked. And that's in a congressional probe, where everything is looser. Much tighter in a DOJ criminal probe.

Would, say, Mark Meadows leak it if the DOJ subpoenaed him for evidence against Trump? Maybe. But that would be one of the very late-stage steps the DOJ would take, because Meadows is all the way at the top.

Prosecutors don't leak things about ongoing criminal cases to the media, unless they 1) think doing so can help break open the investigation, or 2) are trying to get the public off their back.

Garland's recent speech made clear that he wishes the public would get off his back about the ongoing 1/6 DOJ case against Trump world. But he's clearly not the kind of guy who's willing to leak details just to get people to stop being mean to him on Twitter.

By the way, no one cares how long this is taking. Other than those of you who spend all day staring at Twitter and MSNBC and demanding to know why it's taking so long, people in the real world don't think we're all 24 hours away from TOTAL DOOM unless somebody DOES SOMETHING.

When the 1/6 committee finally airs its televised hearings, the general public will say "okay, sounds like they've figured out what role Trump played in that mess, let's tune in." If DOJ charges Trump, general public will say "okay, they must have found some proof, here we go."

NO ONE is in hurry, outside of this weird political punditry bubble where we always pretend we're 24 hours from total doom just for the adrenaline rush. Most Americans want Trump to go to prison, but they're not lying awake about it, fretting that it didn't happen yesterday.

So the DOJ doesn't have to care what pace it moves at. Nor does the 1/6 committee have to care what pace it moves at, beyond the fact that the Democrats on the committee know they're stuck babysitting you needy folks while also trying to do their jobs.

And they're right, there is no reason to have to hurry.

The doomsday types spent all of 2021 insisting we were 24 hours from doom unless some major magic wand-style thing happened. None of those magic wand things happened, and yet we're all still here; Trump hasn't taken over.

The only thing legal experts know is that they don't yet know a damn thing about what Garland is going to do with the highest level targets, because even Garland isn't yet in a position to know what he's going to do. But that kind of honestly simply does not satisfy you folks.

Because you demand to know the unknowable, and because you insist on 24/7 updates about criminal cases that have almost zero leaks, you end up getting fed bullshit from legal experts who feel pressure to make up definitive things just to keep you entertained and remain employed.

And none of what you're listening to, participating in, or kvetching about has any relevance to reality whatsoever – with the singular exception being that because you spend all your time bashing the Democrats, people around you hear it and decide not to vote Democrat in 2022.

Yes, that's right, your non-political friends hear YOU, the biggest liberal/democrat they know, bashing the Democrats for "not being good enough" and they say okay then, no reason to waste time heading out to vote for the Democrats this year, I'll just stay home.

You guys have no fucking idea how much damage you do by demanding 24/7 heart pumping defeatist hysteria from pundits, and helping put those "Democrats aren't doing anything" narratives out there. You fools cost us more elections than republican voter suppression laws ever will.

The shame of it is, most of you aren't so deranged as to actually be willing to forfeit elections just to feed your addiction to political adrenaline. You just lose the plot so badly, you don't ever quite realize you're working 24/7 to hand every election to the republicans.