well I am not nearly expert enough to debate your points about the DOJ's history. What I _can_ say with confidence is that from my POV that this is a hot button issue for my parents, many in their circles, and I imagine asian families nationwide. Given the other actions of this administration I can't shake the feeling that a strong motive for this is to curry favor with that demographic. It strikes me as an awfully convenient time to start making noise here.
Considering that the Justic Dept has dropped cases against friends of the president (one of whom confessed to the crime of lying to the FBI to cover up for the president) and given that we're a couple months from an election where race is an issue, I also share your doubt about the Justice Dept being agnostic here.
You are making things up. Flynn was setup, his 302s were altered, FBI didn’t believe he lied, Brady evidence was not provided to his counsel (and still hasn’t been), he was bankrupted with over 6 million in legal fees, he had to sell both his houses, his old lawyers had severe conflict of interest which were not disclosed and he was threatened that they would go after his son if he didn’t plead guilty to something he never said. He was the incoming national security advisor - media makes it seem like the national security advisor talking to foreign countries after election is somehow an illegal thing? Now his judge has gone on a full circus.
Please research from non biased non spin news and look at actual documents unsealed.
There's also a perfectly reasonable argument on the facts to drop the case against Flynn - not least of all what appears to be motivated entrapment and no appropriate cause to investigate in the first place - but this becomes a politically charged argument and I feel it's inappropriate on HN.
There's probably some edgy contrarian aspect going on, but do note that this was spurred by a lawsuit brought in 2014 by those alleging that they were discriminated against.
The DOJ took it up, but at one level it would be obscene if they didn't - imagine the inverse (some evidence of anti-black admissions procedures is found), and the DOJ - who is tasked with prosecuting hate crimes and other civil rights-style issues - did not take it up.
In this case I almost feel like the Republican DOJ is being looked at sideways because one of the alleged victim parties is white... Had it been blacks and Asians, I doubt anyone would've cast aspersions on the Obama DOJ for taking up the charge.
TL;dr this sort of topic is the DOJ's bread and butter, and since it began via lawsuits from the affected parties I don't think there's much cynical "discretion" going on in this particular case.
> The DOJ took it up, but at one level it would be obscene if they didn't - imagine the inverse (some evidence of anti-black admissions procedures is found), and the DOJ - who is tasked with prosecuting hate crimes and other civil rights-style issues - did not take it up.
You mean like publicly abandoning ongoing investigations of systematic racial discrimination by local police departments while dismissing the entire idea of conducting such investigations when there was evidence in hand as an intrusion on law enforcement?
The DOJ did that almost immediately when the current Administration took over.
> this sort of topic is the DOJ's bread and butter, and since it began via lawsuits from the affected parties I don't think there's much cynical "discretion" going on in this particular case.
The DOJ doesn't join or follow every, or even most, discrimination cases filed by private parties which are minimally viable and state claims which would also provide a public cause of action, so I have no idea on what basis you jump from “started by a private lawsuit” to “therefore doesn’t have much cynical discretion involved”.
