Washington Post: Let My Criminals Go Free!

Here's another specimen in the Washington Post's incomprehensible crusade to help Donald Trump and his criminal lackeys escape the consequences of his attempt to overthrow the US government.  Note that the Post is hardly the only promoter of this idiotic attempt to license criminality; I am sure that that paper is even worse, but we do not regard it as news when they do it.

This piece of disingenuous trash is written by Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, along with some chump I won't even bother to name from Indiana, and just goes to show how little honor there is left on the right in this country, even among its most supposedly distinguished academics.

"Opinion:  Criminal prosecution is the wrong idea. Use the 14th Amendment on Trump."

Because right wingers really are above the law.

"Apart from a relatively brief mention in its 800-page report, the Jan. 6 committee missed the Constitution’s preferred punishment for former high officials turned insurrectionists. The committee tries to persuade Americans that criminal prosecution is the only adequate response to Donald Trump’s systematic efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Nearly forgotten debates over ratification of the 14th Amendment point to a better, less divisive approach." 

Let's just interrupt right here.  In the first place, Bruce Ackerman, being a professor at America's second best law school, knows perfectly well that this is a lie.  He has forgotten (or wants us to forget) the actual preferred punishment for such people, contained in the body of the Constitution itself, not in an addendum written a century later:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort...The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason"

And is there anyone out there that will argue that inciting an armed attack on the Capitol, aimed at destroying the ability of Congress to act, and in the process executing its leaders is not "giving aid and comfort" to this nation's enemies?  Ackerman just ignores this part of the Constitution, and instead proposes that the response to the worst abuse of power in the history of the Presidency should be a meaningless slap on the wrist.

And let's not leave this section of his remarks without commenting on his "less divisive" approach.  What does this mean?  It would not create divisions among anyone who cares about the rule of law or the destruction of our country.  What Ackerman is really saying is that we should let Trump off because holding him responsible for his actions might produce an orgy of violence from the right which this country has never, before now, even imagined.  And this is considered legitimate grounds for a Yale Law School professor to justify mangling the law and allowing monstrous criminality to go unpunished.

"Congressional sponsors of the amendment made clear that they were following the path marked by Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural address: “with malice toward none, with charity to all.” In the words of Ohio Republican Rep. John Bingham, a leading draftsman, the Disqualification Clause represented “an act of forgiveness on the part of the American people, without a parallel, I undertake to say, in the history of nations.”

And look at the consequences that resulted from this failure to punish those who were guilty of armed rebellion against the country- a century and a half of contentious justification of what they did, followed by the current period, when criminals like Trump feel free to attempt to emulate their behavior.  

"If the 14th Amendment had been rejected, (Jefferson Davis) would almost certainly have been convicted of treason and immediately executed. Yet, as soon as the amendment was ratified, the Army dropped the charges and freed Davis."

He should have been immediately executed.  He precipitated the deaths of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. This section of the 14th amendment licensed a failure to enforce the law, which must be corrected now.  Trump's real crime is treason, and he must face real punishment for that crime if we are not to find ourselves in this same situation over and over again.  

"Davis survived to publish an autobiography that helped to advance the Lost Cause myth of the Civil War, the government did not make him a martyr to that cause."

Because the country abandoned justice in order to sate those who might be tempted to carry on his traitorous crusade.  

"In calling for Trump’s criminal prosecution, the Jan. 6 committee is ignoring the Lincolnian principles embodied in the 14th Amendment."

They would not, however, be ignoring the principle that criminals be held responsible for their crimes.

"Committee members might also be underestimating the difficulty of a criminal prosecution. Assuming he were indicted, Trump would not face a jury any time soon because his lawyers have demonstrated a remarkable ability to drag out court cases. In the meantime, he would remain free to pursue his ongoing campaign for the White House."

And here we go:  Trump would make it so hard for our country to seek justice, that we should just give up and let him go free.  Our country just cannot afford justice any more, not if it involves punishing Republicans.*

"As former president Gerald Ford explained when pardoning his predecessor, Richard M. Nixon, who resigned amid scandal: “During this long period of delay and potential litigation, ugly passions would again be aroused."

Ugly passions.  I.e. right wingers might strike out, killing and looting and joining in with Putin, and who knows what else.  This is the argument that Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman, from his lofty perch atop the American legal system, makes here.  If right wingers are just violent enough, we should let them have whatever they want, regardless of the clear wording of the law, and the danger that lies in that course. ** 

"Special counsel Jack Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland should take a lesson from Ford’s caution, and defer serious consideration of criminal prosecution until the newly elected Congress has a chance to consider the 14th Amendment option mentioned in a single paragraph by the Jan. 6 committee."

Which is to say, given the takeover of the House by Republicans, never.  Serious consideration of criminal prosecution of Republicans should be "deferred" until never.  

 Well, that is enough of that.  In this Republican perversion of legal analysis, some reason must be found to let monstrous Republican criminals escape without punishment; a sentiment with which the Washington Post apparently agrees. Get ready to hear a lot more of this sort of "argument" over the next couple of years.

* This does not apply to you, Hunter Biden.

** This does not apply to you, Hunter Biden.