Leadership Quote by Joshua Micah Marshall

Washington investigations sell themselves as procedural: subpoenas, sealed filings, careful language. Marshall blows that cover. By insisting the Abramoff grand jury probe "can't go on forever", he treats the inquiry not as a neutral march toward truth but as a ticking political clock. Time, in this framing, is the real antagonist: the longer the case drags, the more it threatens to dissolve into Washington's preferred ending for scandal - fatigue.

The key move is the pivot from "the lawyers" to "their bosses". It punctures the civics-class idea that prosecutors simply follow evidence. The Public Integrity Section exists to police corruption, but Marshall's subtext is that its independence is conditional, and that conditionality becomes decisive precisely at the moment the case turns from investigation to indictment. "Decisions about just who they want to indict" is pointedly not "who the evidence supports". Want is a verb of power, not proof.

Then comes the real target: Alberto Gonzales. "Show his cards" borrows from poker to suggest hidden strategy, not transparent governance. The implication is that the Attorney General's role isn't merely supervisory; it's potentially transactional - choosing whether to protect allies, limit damage, or let prosecutions proceed. In the Abramoff era, with lobbying corruption bleeding into the Republican establishment, Marshall is warning that the climax won't be a courtroom revelation but an institutional test: will DOJ act like an independent enforcer or a political instrument? The quote works because it reframes a legal process as a character reveal.