This is immensely frustrating as someone who also genuinely cares about justice being done and the rule of law being followed. I want arrests to be made when there's reasonable information that this judge lied to federal agents, but frankly I can't see the federal government taking appropriate care to ensure they aren't arresting arbitrarily and then dodging accountability for trying to make right their wrongs. The federal government can claim anyone has done a crime and arrest them, but then if they ruin a person's life over this claim what is the arrestee's recourse for justice?
It just seems so in violation of my desire to wait for proof in court: what do we do when the proof is wrong-- how do we make right as a people? This persons was arrested at their workplace publicly and lost their freedoms for however long it takes to sort it out in a court of law. In the meantime the prosecutors who are taking away those freedoms sacrifice nothing while they, too, wait to prove their case in court.
The government probably has evidence, maybe or maybe not persuasive enough for a conviction. That evidence will be presented in due course, not all up front to the media.
Given the circumstances, the government absolutely does have an obligation to present its evidence up front. You cannot use federal agents to arrest officers of a state government unless the charges are rock solid. There is a strong public interest in this case and the current administration has shown that it is owed zero deference or presumption that it is acting in good faith.
That's my problem: while the arrested person is already forced the humiliation of being arrested, having their freedoms stripped from them, they have no remedy and have to wait in the state of being humiliated while the government who prosecutes them isn't also restrained or humiliated during the wait to present evidence.
And additionally, there have been several recent prominent cases where the government has failed to produce any evidence in court while publicly saying to the media that they're arresting criminals-- of course, the government is able to access the media to claim this while the people they've arrested who, again, have had their freedoms restricted while the people who restrict them are under no similar restraint are unable to do the same!
We can see this in action right now: the government gets to claim to the media that the judge is obstructing arrests of illegal immigrants, while the judge can do no such media counterclaim and has to wait in restraints.
It just seems so in violation of my desire to wait for proof in court: what do we do when the proof is wrong-- how do we make right as a people? This persons was arrested at their workplace publicly and lost their freedoms for however long it takes to sort it out in a court of law. In the meantime the prosecutors who are taking away those freedoms sacrifice nothing while they, too, wait to prove their case in court.