A Lawless Presidency Lies Ahead

The rule of law is a foundational principle for our nation and our democracy.

It is the basis for the fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.

President-elect Donald Trump, however, apparently thinks the rule of law doesn’t apply to him.

That’s how we ended up on January 6, 2021, with a vicious mob attacking the Capitol, incited by Trump and his blatantly false claims that the 2020 election was being stolen from him.

Trump has continued attacking the rule of law to this day. On Sunday, in an NBC “Meet the Press” interview, he said that “everybody” on the House Jan. 6 Committee “should go to jail.”

This wasn’t based on any evidence of wrongdoing by the Committee members. It was just one more example of the revenge and retribution presidency that Trump has promised as soon as he is back in the White House.

It is the same kind of approach used by dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping, and the now-deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who jail their political adversaries at will and without legitimate cause to punish them for having the audacity to oppose them.

So how would Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to be FBI Director, respond to Trump’s call for jail time for the Jan. 6 Committee members?

With the fair and impartial administration of justice? Not likely.

Patel has called Trump the “juggernaut of justice” and “our warrior.”  Like Trump, he is an election denier, and he has promised to go after government officials and the media who, in Patel’s words, “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

Patel’s blind loyalty to Trump and his extremist views show that he would be an operating arm of Trump’s revenge and retribution presidency.

Trump’s call for the Jan. 6 Committee members to go to jail is the dangerous, irresponsible act of a President-elect who apparently believes he is all powerful – our democracy and the rule of law be damned.

House Members would be protected in a criminal proceeding by the Constitution’s “Speech or Debate clause.” But even if all the FBI could do is open an investigation, it is likely to cost Committee members large legal fees.

And what would happen to others – like one of the Committee’s key witnesses, former White House staffer Cassidy Hutchinson – if a confirmed Patel goes after them for testifying against Trump?

Hutchinson, of course, is not protected by the “Speech or Debate” clause, and it could cost her enormous legal fees for doing nothing wrong and simply telling truth to power.

Patel has already prepared his own “enemies list” of nearly 60 current and former Executive Branch officials. How many more will be added if he becomes FBI Director?

Given Patel’s history, his own enemies list, and his blind loyalty to Trump what are the chances that he could ever meet the Justice Department’s mission to ensure the fair and impartial administration of justice?

While calling for the Jan. 6 Committee members to be jailed, Trump also told NBC’s “Meet The Press” that he is prepared on Day One to pardon “with maybe some exceptions” the Jan. 6 mob he incited to violently attack the Capitol.

More than 1,200 have been convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes committed in connection with the Jan. 6 attack. These include people who ransacked the Capitol, who threatened the life of Vice President Mike Pence, and who assaulted 140 police officers, including officers who later died. These people pled guilty or were found guilty of criminal conduct by juries of their peers.

Last week, in sentencing one of the Jan. 6 rioters, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed judge, noted that “truth and justice, law and order” are bedrock principles of the judicial system.

Lamberth said that the jurors in the cases brought against the rioters “know how perilously close we came to letting the peaceful transfer of power, that great cornerstone of the American republican experiment and perhaps our foremost contribution to posterity, slip away from us.”

Trump says he is about to pardon convicted criminals who conducted a brazen and violent attack on our Capitol, an attack that Trump, himself, incited.

At the same time, Trump has indicated he will go after his perceived enemies – shades of President Richard Nixon’s enemies list –  and it will be based on Trump’s personal quest for vengeance.

A lawless presidency lies ahead.

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