What matters is whether there is activity in the investigation, the technical matter of whether an office file is opened or closed is of no importance—the only thing that matters is are prosecutors actively investigating and is the grand jury collecting new evidence.

Andy McCarthy

As a matter of general policy, de-radicalization programs are unproven and their usefulness is doubtful, if the judge reduces the sentence that they would have otherwise imposed in a terrorism case by relying on the hope that de-radicalization will work, that just gives an unearned reward based on an unproven theory to a serious offender.

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The only way to do something like that is to have a very strong case, and in Bragg’s case, because he is a progressive prosecutor, it would have been a very bad look for him to be singling out Trump on comparatively trivial crimes, when he is lax in the prosecution of serious criminals in New York City.

For all the strident claims about how the Clinton campaign pushed the government's law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus into spying on President Trump, Special Counsel Durham has thus far charged no crimes along those lines. The indictment of Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann merely alleges that he lied to the FBI to conceal that he was working for the Clinton campaign and tech executive Rodney Joffe, that said, though, it is just breathtaking to watch the media-Democrat complex, which hyped Robert Mueller’s every move in the bogus Trump-Russia ‘collusion’ caper,suddenly develop laryngitis in the matter of Durham’s probe -- that is, when it is not outright hostile.

I don’t like ‘hate crimes’ charges because they overcomplicate violent crime prosecutions, sometimes incurably so, that is because they shift the emphasis from what the defendant did to what his motive was for doing it. That can be a trap, especially with a defendant who is likely to raise his mental capacity as a defense.

The best approach to a prosecution of Brooks is to charge him with murder and felony murder counts, in addition to attempted murder, maiming, criminal assault, and other straightforward felonies to account for those who were injured.

I think they’re absolutely the right verdicts.