It's turning into the cliffhanger of the century.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow copped it 15-odd centuries later, but it was a Greek skeptic philosopher named Sextus Empiricus who first noted that "the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small."

Attorney General Merrick Garland appears to be a grinder after all. From the Washington Post:

After all these months, it’s strange to see it in black and white. Even after the case that the House select committee laid out so plainly in its public hearings, it’s strange to see it in black and white. Even after all the dogged reporting out of Washington, and Georgia, and Arizona; after four years of a chaotic and periodically insane presidency, and an even more chaotic and constantly insane post-presidency, it’s strange to see it set out so plainly and so starkly in print. The Department of Justice is investigating the former president* of the United States on suspicion of organizing a criminal cabal of second-rate ratfckers to overthrow the United States government, with a violent attack on the Capitol as its last overt act.

(And let us never lose sight of the fact that this was conspiracy of dunces: Eastman. Clark. Ellis. Giuliani. Flynn. Powell. The president* himself. Washington hasn’t seen such a misbegotten junta since John Wilkes Booth put together his band of scoundrels and vagabonds to decapitate the executive branch in 1865.)

Both tracks of the investigation have accelerated in recent days, as the House committee wrapped up its scheduled slate of public hearings with the promise of more to come. The DOJ dropped subpoenas on people suspected of being part of the counterfeit electors plot in Arizona. Aides to former Vice President Mike Pence have dropped by a federal grand jury. And Garland himself on Wednesday night sat down with Lester Holt of NBC News to say (again) that he'll follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Meanwhile, The New York Times got ahold of some hilarious internal White House emails that remind you of nothing more than those Enron messages about letting Aunt Tillie freeze in the dark.

They don’t think you’re all suckers. They know you’re all suckers.

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has his three children.

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