 |
| Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger (Getty) |
Two Republicans from the U.S. House committee that investigated January 6 -- Liz Cheney (Wyoming) and Adam Kinzinger (Illinois) -- are fighting back against Donald Trump's threats to have committee members jailed. Trump has been unable to cite any alleged crimes that would support prosecution of members -- and that is a point Cheney has driven home to the public.
Under the headline "Trump Names Top Targets in Chilling Revenge Threat; Donald Trump is laying out a dark vision for return to office," Malcolm Ferguson writes at The New Republic (TNR):
Trump wants anyone involved with the House January 6 investigation committee in jail ASAP.
In a recent interview aired on Meet the Press—Trump’s first since his election night win—the president-elect laid out the framework for his draconian vision, starting with his revenge list.
“I think those people committed a major crime, and [Liz] Cheney was behind it,” he said of the House select committee tasked with investigating January 6. “And so was Benny Thompson. Everybody on that committee.… For what they did, yeah, honestly, they should go to jail.”
The committee, run by the aforementioned Cheney and Thompson, as well as six other Democrats and another Republican, was shut down when Republicans won the House back in 2023.
The committee accurately deduced that Trump did indeed incite acts of violence during his attempt to hold onto the office after his 2020 defeat, which he refuses to acknowledge to this day. He also accused the committee of deleting and destroying evidence regarding January 6, a claim with no evidence.
Trump also has said he wants other perceived enemies, including Special Counsel Jack Smith, to face prosecution. Regarding Smith, Trump said in an article at CNN:
While he won’t push his attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, to investigate his enemies, he’s not shutting it down, either:
"She’s a very smart person. She’s — she was a great attorney general in Florida. She’s very experienced. I want her to do what she wants to do. I’m not going to instruct her to do it, no."
A few moments later, however Trump undercut this message when he argued that former Rep. Liz Cheney and other people on the House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection committed a “major crime.”
Cheney wasted little time in firing back, making sure the public knows Trump has few, or no, facts to back up his grand legal theories.
Is "do what she/he wants to do" grounds for Bondi, or Trump, to seek a criminal action against Cheney, Kinzinger, Smith, or anyone else? Of course not; the standard is a showing of probable cause, and we have seen no signs that Bondi or Trump can come close to meeting it. Ferguson writes:
Trump used the entire election cycle to fill out his “prosecute and imprison” list, and is so deep in his lies about January 6 that he’s convinced himself of his own victimhood. It’s us who are the problem, not him. When asked if he would finally concede the 2020 election now that the dust has settled and he’s won again, Trump replied, “No, why would I do that?”
Various outlets have reported that President Biden has put preemptive pardons on the table for anyone who might be on one of Trump’s lists.
Meanwhile, Kash Patel, Trump's choice to be FBI director, is showing signs that he is not up to the task Trump has planned for him. We will have much more on that subject in upcoming posts, including insights from a policy and legal expert in a previous Republican administration -- a gentleman who actually knows what he is talking about. How far off track is Kash Patel, according to our expert? The answer is "way, way off." We invite you to stay with us because this is an expert whose voice definitely needs to be heard.
No comments:
Post a Comment