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Rep. Adam Kinzinger
When the flags fly proudly on the Fourth of July, I remember what my late father taught me about love of country. Much as he despised the scoundrels and pretenders he liked to call "jelly-bellied flag flappers," after a line in a favorite Rudyard Kipling story, he was deeply patriotic. It is a phrase that aptly describes the belligerent chicken hawk who never stops squawking — someone like Ted Cruz or Donald Trump.
Like many who volunteered for the U.S. Army in World War II, my dad never spoke much about his four tough years of military service, which brought him under Japanese bombardment in the Pacific theater. But eventually there came a time when he attached to his lapel a small eagle-shaped pin known as a "ruptured duck" — a memento given to every veteran. With this proof of service, he demonstrated that as a lifelong liberal, he loved his country as much as any conservative.
That gesture occurred during one of those periods when the political polarization now plaguing our country began to metastasize. It seemed important to my father -- and to me over these many years since -- to lay down a marker for liberals and progressives who love America, with her manifest flaws and conflicted past. Over these past two years, however, living through the pandemic and the insurrection, it has become equally important to recognize that patriotism can still bring us together across sectarian and ideological divides. And on this holiday, to celebrate the determined defense of democracy and law that brings together patriots of all partisan stripes.
On this Independence Day, it doesn't seem so important to argue, as I have in years past, that the liberal left is equally as devoted to American institutions and values as our compatriots on the right -- because so many of the latter have demonstrated, in their fealty to Trump, that they love their would-be dictator more than they love their country. Democrats have proved to be staunch and unified in their defense of the Constitution, with the party's elected officials leading the fight to uphold democracy both at home and around the world.
What feels vital today is to appreciate the allies from the other side of the political aisle who have rallied to the cause, at no small cost to themselves and their families. It is a list that grows longer by the day, starting with Rep. Liz Cheney and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the Republicans who broke with their party to demand truth and justice in the wake of Trump's attempted January 6 coup. Both have proved willing to sacrifice their promising political futures and to subject themselves to vile abuse as they stood up against their degenerating quasi-fascist party and its criminal leader. They have forged real friendships as well as strong working relationships with the Democrats on the House Select Committee, because that is what Americans do in a time of crisis.
Both Kinzinger and Cheney still profess what I would consider misguided views or worse on many issues, and have adopted some positions -- on voting rights, for instance -- that contradict their professed love of democracy. So have other Republican and former Republican officials and leaders who have nevertheless proven their independence from Trump's authoritarian mob. Rusty Bowers, the Arizona Republican legislator who refused to bow to that mob, has even said he would vote for Trump again -- a truly bizarre statement.
And yet we must be grateful to Bowers, and to Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sperling of Georgia, as well as the eight other Congressional Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in January 2020, the seven Republican senators who voted to convict him, and the many conservatives who have chosen law and liberty over chaos, lies, and tyranny. Yes, that even includes Mike Pence, the former vice president who merely did his duty but performed that constitutional task under threat of death from the leader to whom he had shown such obsequious loyalty.
I cannot help but hope that all of these good people, forced to turn away from their party and many of their friends, will reconsider their reactionary views on all kinds of matters. Some conservatives, including a few whom I've gotten to know better in these moments, are indeed looking back and questioning rigid perspectives from the past. In many cases that is what their intelligence and ethics will eventually require of them.
Yet on this July Fourth, any such considerations matter much less to me than their willingness to set aside our differences in a common cause. Disagreements about the best way to fulfill our nation's promise will endure -- and I look forward to the day when we can again debate those matters in a democratic society secure from authoritarian threats.
Meanwhile, we ought to appreciate all the leaders, thinkers, and activists who have joined America's united front against fascism. We will be struggling together to preserve our common birthright for years to come.
.
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Liz Cheney
YouTube Screenshot
Rep. Liz Cheney delivered two clear warnings during last week's House Select Committee hearings. One was to Donald Trump aides and allies who conspired with him to violently overthrow our government. The second was to those who merely observed these crimes but refuse to tell what they know.
The first message: the game is up because the J6 committee has the goods on Trump’s conspiracy, the coverup and the witness tampering so it’s time to either rat out Donald to save your own skin or give up any hope of leniency when indictments are handed out.
The second message: there’s no legitimate public reason to hold back information if you were a bystander, an observer, but if you do nothing your reputation will be trashed, you will be forever branded a coward and you just might get indicted for failure to report traitorous conduct, itself a crime called misprision of a felony.
The only issue is how to frame the case against Trump and his co-conspirators. As prosecutors often say, you file the case you can win, not the case you want to file.
Cheney didn’t say any of those specifics. She didn’t have to because while the significance of her words and actions may have flown over the heads of most people the lawyers got it loud and clear to criminal defense lawyers representing both the conspirators and the bystanders. The lawyers could be as drunk as Rudy Giuliani and they would still get the messages.
Cheney, that rare Republican who has not surrendered her soul to Trump, put two messages on a big screen at the end of Tuesday’s hearing. The texts showed witness tampering, something Trump has done all his life as the late great Wayne Barrett documented three decades ago.
The terrifying part for conspirators who still cling to Donald was that no names were shown on the big screen, a move sure to spread paranoia and suspicion among the conspirators.
Conspiracy law is designed to help law enforcement drive a wedge between criminals. Criminal defense lawyers are for sure asking their clients this question: Which do you prefer, prison for you or for Donald?
In the cold calculus of criminal law, conspirators who get to prosecutors first with solid evidence and who come clean, really clean, may be able to cut deals saving them from much if any prison time. Even if they can’t avoid prison, they may be able to negotiate agreements on how long and where they will serve their time.
Witness tampering is a charge that prosecutors love to include in a conspiracy case because it shows mens rea – criminal intent. If you are actualoly innocent why would you try to prevent witnesses from telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
No Going Back
For some of Trump’s traitors it’s too late. Like Dante, they stare at the sign above the gates of Hell: abandon hope all ye who enter here. Among those are Giuliani and Mike Flynn, the disgraced general who was on at least two Kremlin-connected payrolls, one direct, the other surreptious.
During a video deposition, snippets of which were played at the Tuesday hearing, Cheney asked Flynn an anodyne question that any loyal American immediately would answer with one word: Yes.
Cheney asked Flynn if he supported the peaceful transition of power from one administration to the next. Flynn exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Flynn’s response, his lawyer at his side, makes perfect sense only if you are a traitor who participated in Trump’s failed coup d’état.
But for others who conspired, or watched and failed to act, there is still hope.
A legal tool can be used to persuade those foolishly loyal to Trump to tell the truth even if all they did was observe the coup plotting and execution of that incompetent but still dangerous attempt to overthrow our democracy.
Title 18 Section 4, known as misprision of a felony, provides that “having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under ther United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
Misprision—note the third “i” in that word—means “the deliberate concealment of one’s knowledge of a treasonable act or a felony.” That’s what a coup is: treason. But there are many other crimes that the Justice Department can file against the Trump conspirators.
The Only Issue
The issue before Attorney General Merrick Garland, thanks to work his people should have done but that the J6 committee did instead, is no longer whether there is a criminal case to be made against Donald Trump. The issue isn’t even, as some former federal prosecutors keep saying, whether Trump should be indicted.
The only issue is how to frame the case against Trump and his co-conspirators. As prosecutors often say, you file the case you can win, not the case you want to file.
Part of that framing is how to break up the conspiracy; how to get the rats to turn on each other.
Its clear from search warrant affidavits and subpoenas that Garland has an active criminal investigation or multiple investigations underway.
The real question how is how far flung will the indictments be and will our Justice Department bring a clear, simple and direct case against the man who would be our dictator.
Reprinted with permission from DC Report.
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