Eric Holder is as well-positioned as anyone to opine on how Trump may or may not be prosecuted. His invaluable experience at the top would inform him as to DOJ policy and how DOJ evaluates cases (famously slowly, glacially slowly, they will not arrest unless the defendant has all but pleaded guilty on camera). But Holder also surely has one other thing going for him. He has mentored many young attorneys over the years, attorneys that are now in key positions to “know things,” the type that may come to him for advice. In other words, when Holder speaks, listen. Because he may be relaying stuff he’s “heard” from the inside.
He recently spoke to SiriusXM’s “Urban View,” where he said (By way of HuffPo)
“My eyes are on Fulton County first. Look at the Justice Department in 2023.”
“My guess is that by the end of this process, you’re going to see indictments involving high-level people in the White House, you’re going to see indictments against people outside the White House who were advising them with regard to the attempt to steal the election.
“And I think ultimately you’re probably going to see the president, former president of the United States indicted as well.”
The Justice Department has a well-intentioned and generally necessary rule about not prosecuting or issuing subpoenas and warrants against politicians within 60 days of an election, and they might even apply that rule to Trump even though he’s not running in 2022. So it makes sense for Holder to say that DOJ will hold off until after the mid-terms. But that also explains why rumors have been swirling that Trump might announce a run prior to the mid-terms, hoping that a candidacy somehow protects him.
Georgia affords Trump none of those protections and can prosecute him just like they might any other presidential candidate who called up the Secretary of State saying, “Guys, guys, I’m asking for 11,700 votes, jeez, give me a break and just hand me the damn state so I can move on.”
Holder’s plan sounds solid with one exception, and perhaps we’re the only website that continues to point it out. There could be a very clean, almost non-political felony laying out there in the hands of a Florida grand jury evaluating Trump’s possession of top secret files in Mar-a-Lago. If the goal is to hold Trump accountable for something, anything, make him pay a price, a nice, clean, felony, almost self-proving, might be very tempting to DOJ, as it charges everyone else (Meadows, Bannon, etc.) for January 6th, while using the top secret file case as the “means to the ends” in holding Trump accountable.
Then again, Holder knows what he’s talking about. When he speaks, we should listen.
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.