OK, so indict him already.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the Senate floor the first day of the televised Jan. 6 select committee hearings, said: “(Former President) Donald Trump was at the heart of a coordinated effort to overturn the 2020 elections, to overturn our constitutional order, and inflict permanent damage upon our democracy.”
But Democratic committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., when asked about possible Department of Justice charges against Trump, said: “Attorney General (Merrick) Garland is my constituent, and I don’t browbeat my constituents. I think that he knows, his staff knows, the U.S. attorneys know what’s at stake here. They are well aware of its importance. But I think they’re rightfully paying close attention to precedent and history, as well as the facts of this case.” Not exactly full speed ahead.
And the day after the first hearing, committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss, said: “(Criminal referrals to the DOJ are) not our job. Our job is not to look at Jan. We will then make recommendations about the causes. … We don’t have the authority.”
Committee member Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., disagreed, tweeting, “The Committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals. We will announce a decision on that at an appropriate time.”
Trump, on Jan. 6, in his speech before the riots, said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Two days earlier, according to Alec Schemmel of the Media Research Center: “A Capitol Police timeline of the days and weeks surrounding Jan. 6 shows former President Donald Trump’s Department of Defense (DOD) offered the National Guard’s assistance in the days leading up to the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, validating claims from Trump administration officials that were said to be false by liberal fact-checkers.”
First-year law students know that the DOJ will not convict them, even with a partisan Washington, D.C. jury. This jury included Michael Sussmann, a Hillary Clinton attorney who escaped conviction despite lying to the FBI. When he gave thumb drives containing false claims about a Trump/Russia collusion, he falsely claimed he was acting as an individual citizen. Yet he billed Hillary Clinton for “work and communications regarding confidential project” on the day of the FBI meeting and for the thumb drives he purchased six days earlier. The jury allowed him to leave.
By the way, were these new proponents for law and order during this bloody and violent summer 2020?
In June 2020, Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, said: “People are at their wits’ end with the lack of accountability and the ability for police to continue to kill, abuse, maim and torture black people. And so George Floyd’s murder is just the tipping point.” She added: “I think people are upset. They’re angry. They have been angry for a long period. I think these protests will last for a long time.”
They did.
The violent “insurrections” that summer resulted in the death of at least 25, thousands of arrests, 2,000 cops injured and, according to Axios, during May 26 to June 8, 2020, “at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims.” RealClearInvestigations concluded the riots resulted in “15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot.”
Because of the false narrative that the police engage in “systemic racism” against blacks, cops have abandoned from “proactive policing,” a pullback that has caused “excess” deaths. A Thomson Reuters data scientist concluded: “… if you add up the estimates of murders from the different studies in various cities and time periods, you get something in the neighborhood of 2,500 additional murders on the lowest end…“
All of this, of course, will be dismissed by many as “whataboutism”—a term, tactic and rhetorical device often resorted to by the intellectually dishonest left when they’re called out for their hypocrisy, double standards and selective outrage.
COPYRIGHT LAURENCE A. ELDER
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM
The Daily Signal offers a variety perspectives. This article is not meant to represent the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Do you have a comment about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Please include the URL of the article or headline, as well as your name and hometown.
