While I admire the fighting spirit of President Trump’s advisor Steve Bannon, two recent experiences have convinced me that his demands for legal retaliation are unrealistic and probably impossible.
My first experience was the trial of Rebecca Lavrenz in March in federal district court in Washington, D.C. Lavrenz said that IAshley: The Untold Story of the Women of January 6thLaBrentz is a great-grandmother. On January 4 and 5, 2021, she drove 25 hours alone to Washington, DC to pray for the country. On January 6, when the doors to the Capitol opened from the inside, LaBrentz walked inside and prayed for 10 minutes before leaving. Two months later, FBI agents found her home in rural Colorado and arrested her.
The goal before the election should not be to create enemies but to gain supporters: it is in Trump’s best interest to convince and persuade the uninformed.
A half-century ago, as a finalist in the Miss Iowa pageant, LaVrens won prizes for her affability. If anything, she’s gotten more likeable over time, but that didn’t bother a bored DC jury. Unimpressed by her candor, they found her guilty on all four charges. She is awaiting sentencing in August. To date, a DC jury has not acquitted a single J6.
In 2020, President Donald Trump won 5% of the voters in Washington, DC. As I learned at the Ashli Babbitt Freedom March on Memorial Day, many, perhaps most, of the remaining 95% don’t just dislike Trump, they despise, hate and fear him. As we marched southeast from the Capitol on our way to the DC jail, Trump and American flags flew, our mostly white neighbors hurled abuse at us relentlessly. There was unmasked hatred in their taunts. I was particularly struck by the range and fervor of the insults uttered by the young women.
The people of Washington, DC, the scene of so many political crimes, will never convict John Brennan or James Comey, and they will never convict Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden. DC Jury The Supreme Court found his lawyer, Michael Sussman, insignificant and acquitted him of lying to the FBI despite overwhelming evidence pointing to his guilt. Special Counsel John Durham spent three years investigating a conspiracy to frame Trump as a Russian puppet but convicted no one.
The acquittal allowed many Americans, and nearly all Democrats, to ignore the unprecedented betrayal of the Obama-Biden Administration. If the Trump Justice Department were to try other legitimate criminals, the media would reflexively muddy the waters and make it unclear, and the juries would acquit.
To achieve some measure of justice, Trump and his supporters would be wise to redirect their desire for retribution towards more realistic and acceptable alternatives. A South African-style “truth and reconciliation commission” immediately springs to mind. Many on the left, especially Barack Obama, cut their political teeth protesting apartheid. Of course, they don’t think the Obama-Biden administration can be compared morally to the apartheid regime, but they should. A truth and reconciliation commission in the United States would open the public’s eyes to the gravity of their crimes.
what South African TRC The biggest challenge for the Trump administration was the proposal to offer amnesty to those who are willing to tell the truth about crimes they committed under the authority of the law. Democratic activists will not want to come clean before a US truth commission, but once the bad guys start speaking, the pressure will grow for others to do the same. The Trump administration’s Justice Department may not be able to convict the uncooperative, but it can make their lives hell.
As in South Africa, the US TRC would allow victims to come forward and seek compensation, and the likely large number of claimants would include such now well-known victims as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Peter Navarro, Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.
Those without the resources to fight the administration would further benefit from the opportunity to make their case in public: the incarcerated pro-lifers, the persecuted school board protesters, the unemployed and unvaccinated, the unbanked, the blacklisted, the deplatformed, the hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters who were deliberately over-prosecuted and over-sentenced.
The televised proceedings will expose America to the many damages and usurpations of the Obama-Biden era: the Russia collusion hoax, the “51 intelligence experts” fraud, the Afghanistan disaster, the COVID lie, the January 6 House committee deception, aiding and abetting the illegal immigrant invasion, social media suppression, dementia cover-up, rigged 2020 election, the relentless legal war against Trump and his lawyers, and countless others.
Even educated liberals know so little about this relentless abuse that they don’t understand why Steve Bannon would seek retribution. They are scared of the word. They are scared of Trump. They are horrified by the Supreme Court. And they shamelessly share their horror with the ignorant on social media.
It is tempting to ignore the ignorant among us, but they vote. The goal before the election should be to make converts, not enemies. It is in Trump’s best interest to persuade and appease them. In this respect, “reconciliation” would be a much more effective electoral strategy than “retaliation.” As Trump himself said in his unforgettable debate with Biden, the best retaliation is success.
