Thread by @PalmerReport

If I had to guess, after the 1/6 committee referred Meadows for criminal contempt, the DOJ asked the committee to hold off sending any more such referrals for now, because it's complicating the ongoing criminal cases that the DOJ already has against so many of Trump's people.

Why do I say this? When the committee referred Bannon, the DOJ indicted and arrested him fairly quickly. But the contempt indictment appeared to have been carved out of a much longer indictment document, suggesting the DOJ has been building a massive criminal case against Bannon.

So the DOJ quickly acted on the 1/6 committee's first contempt indictment, as a courtesy. But then the committee referred Meadows for contempt, and ten weeks later nothing has happened – yet the committee isn't really complaining about it publicly.

If the committee felt the DOJ was doing "nothing" about the Meadows referral, it would be publicly screaming about it by now. Instead the committee has been patient, and has held off on sending inevitable contempt referrals against Stone, Jones, and other non-cooperators.

Best guess: the DOJ doesn't want to have to keep carving contempt indictments out of the much broader indictments they've been building against these people, because it doesn't want to have to keep giving away what it has against these people in court filings.

Bannon keeps using the contempt charges against him as an excuse to ask the courts to force the DOJ to turn over more details about its overall 1/6 investigation. It's been a major pain in the ass for the DOJ to have to stop and fight these battles.

Again, the ONLY reason Bannon is trying to pry more details out of the DOJ is that he believes it's building a massive set of criminal cases against Trump world. And the only reason for the DOJ to try to protect these details is that it does have such criminal cases in the works.

So let's say the DOJ had also indicted Meadows for contempt in January, then the committee referred Stone, Jones, and others, and the DOJ indicted them for contempt. Now there are half of dozen court battles going on, all aimed at exposing the DOJ's ongoing 1/6 criminal cases.

Keep in mind that most or all of the people indicted for contempt will end up getting out on bail while awaiting trial. So indicting them all now for contempt would do nothing to keep them from being out there, running their mouths on podcasts, etc.

So what would be the actual upside to indicting all these folks for contempt right now, as opposed to down the road? None, beyond giving us the adrenaline rush of getting to see these goons in handcuffs. But that's not a reason.

As I've said from day one, the January 6th Committee exists solely to convince the general American public that Trump is guilty of felonies against the United States. Those of us who already know he's guilty are NOT the target audience. We don't have to be convinced.

In that sense, it makes zero difference whether Meadows is indicted for contempt now, or indicted for contempt down the road. The 1/6 committee already got the Bannon arrest, which sent a message to skittish witnesses that they will eventually be indicted if they don't cooperate.

There's also the alternate theory that the DOJ isn't indicting Meadows for contempt because he's already cut a deal with the DOJ. This is plausible, given that Meadows already flipped on Trump once and began giving the committee evidence against Trump, before changing his mind.

But either way, if the 1/6 committee considered it unacceptable that Meadows hasn't been indicted for contempt yet, its move would be to send the DOJ more and more contempt referrals against Trump world, so as to ramp up public pressure for contempt indictments.

Instead the committee, which has repeatedly shown itself to be aggressively playing for keeps, has made no effort to put public pressure on the DOJ to indict Meadows for contempt. And it's held off on the multiple other contempt referrals it clearly has ready to go.

Of course the doomsday types have already decided the DOJ is doing "nothing," the 1/6 committee is doing "nothing," everyone is doing "nothing," and no amount of evidence to the contrary can change their minds. But that's not reality.

Hours ago the DOJ finalized a cooperating plea deal with Roger Stone's January 6th chauffeur, and while he'll get sentencing leniency, the DOJ had him plead guilty to seditious conspiracy and not the usual customary lesser charge.

The point of bringing seditious conspiracy charges against the "hands-on" leaders of the Capitol attack is so the "hands-off" people above them can also be hit with the same conspiracy charges. And now Stone's driver is pleading guilty to seditious conspiracy and giving up Stone.

Of the double digit number of Oath Keepers leaders who were charged with seditious conspiracy, the first one to take a plea deal just happens to be Stone's driver. What are the odds that's a coincidence? It suggests the DOJ offered him a sweetheart deal, to get to Stone.

So the DOJ is pretty obviously looking to indict Stone for seditious conspiracy, and now has its inside witness. Imagine the DOJ having to stop and indict Stone for contempt in the meantime, and how Stone would use court filings to try to find out what else is coming against him.

Keep in mind that contempt charges do not generally prompt a witness to suddenly cooperate. Contempt charges are the punishment you get for having decided not to cooperate. There's no reason to believe indicting Stone for contempt right now would prompt his cooperation.

And if you believed the feds were building a massive criminal case against you that included SEDITION charges and had the potential to put you away for life, would the threat of a measly contempt charge prompt you be willing to give evidence against yourself to Congress?

Bannon, Meadows, Stone, Jones, etc are all in the same situation. They're looking at a boatload of charges coming down the river, and their focus is trying to fend that off. If that means getting a year in prison for contempt... they're already looking at life in prison anyway.

Now any one of these top Trump people can get a sweetheart deal by flipping on him. But you generally only cut such a deal once you've concluded you're going down for sure. Bannon and Stone probably still think they can beat the rap, because they've done it before.

They're wrong about this. Bannon and Stone were both criminally indicted (Stone was convicted), and would both have spent years rotting in prison if not for Trump pardons. They're not getting pardons this time. That magic wand doesn't exist for them anymore.

But the point is that THEY likely think they can beat the rap. Or hope they can. Or are waiting to see how ugly the cases are against them – which is precisely what Bannon is trying to find out with his court filings in the contempt case against him.

Anyway, as I've said from day one, the useful cooperating witnesses for the January 6th Committee will be the people who have no underlying criminal liability of their own, and can go free simply by testifying against everyone else. They won't want to face contempt charges.

The people who think they're facing life in prison aren't generally going to cooperate with the committee at all, no matter the consequences, because it's not worth it. Anything self-incriminating they say to the committee will be sent back to the DOJ and used against them.

Anyone who's guilty as hell can't simply cooperate with the 1/6 committee and then expect to go free. That person would need to cut a formal plea deal with the DOJ on all potential charges. Meadows learned that the hard way when he gave the committee evidence against himself.

Which is another argument for those who suspect Meadows is cooperating with the DOJ. He stupidly handed the committee an entire criminal case against himself, then realized it days later. As a result the DOJ has him utterly nailed, and he probably knows it.

Bottom line: if the 1/6 committee were publicly throwing a fit about the pending Meadows contempt indictment, and were loudly sending more contempt indictments to try to pressure the DOJ, we'd have to worry that maybe the DOJ is doing "nothing" after all.

Instead the committee has decided to just be okay with the Meadows contempt indictment being on hold, and has decided to pause sending any more contempt indictments for now. It wouldn't do this unless it had a satisfactory explanation for why Meadows is still pending.

Adam Schiff has periodically publicly demanded to know if the DOJ is investigating Trump. That's a fair thing for him to ask. And it's his job to pressure the DOJ on that. So why hasn't Schiff done the same with the pending Meadows indictment? He seems satisfied on that one.

In any case, you don't have to like or agree with the approach the DOJ is taking with Trump world. But it's clear that the DOJ is taking an approach. The plea deal against Stone, and so on. You can't claim the DOJ is doing "nothing" about Trump world. That's easily disproven.

When people insist the DOJ is doing "nothing" about Trump world, what they really mean is they want the DOJ to arrest a gazillion people right this minute. But that's not how these kinds of probes ever work or succeed. If you want convictions, you build cases from the bottom up.

Of course the people who want the DOJ to be "aggressive" and arrest everyone tomorrow are the same people who would then bash the DOJ when those criminal charges ended up faltering due to lack of having built up cooperating witnesses from within the hierarchy.

Some people are just addicted to yelling angry things. If the DOJ arrested Trump tomorrow on ten felony charges, they'd throw a fit and angrily demand to know why it wasn't eleven felony charges. These angry yellers are idiots. Many of them are also pundits.

Look at how many retweets (relatively few) and TV bookings (zero) I'll get from tweeting this nuanced attempt at logically parsing what we know.

Compare that to the viral tweets and numerous MSNBC bookings other pundits get by tweeting "Garland must grow a spine or resign!"

And then you wonder why most political pundits are intentionally full of shit. In this industry you get ahead by pandering to audiences, which means either angrily yelling simplistic things, or laying out laughable magic wand solutions and bashing your leaders for not using them.