By David Robb ——Bio and Archives--May 10, 2023
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Just last week the Proud Boys trial around the events of January 6, 2021 concluded. Four leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted of "seditious conspiracy" in a heavily biased DC court for their activities related to the mostly peaceful demonstrations of that date. Julie Kelly, and others have written in detail about the case and some of the implications, but there are a few aspects I would like to elaborate on here.
To my mind, there are some dangerous precedents that have been set for subsequent attacks on Donald Trump and on the GOP presidential campaign. The first of these is having a court identify the J6 events as "sedition", meaning an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government. Prior to this time, despite the J6 committee attempts to label the events as insurrection, there has been no successful effort to classify them as more than a riot. Being able to apply a label of "sedition" is a huge legal step, bringing into play the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits anyone guilty of insurrection from holding the office of President.
A second precedent in the conviction is being able to secure a conviction against parties who were not even present at the J6 events, solely on the basis of things they said and wrote in the weeks leading up to J6, even though those things did not explicitly make any sort of call to action. In other words, the parties were convicted largely on the basis of how someone else might interpret their words, regardless of how they might have been intended.
We have seen how statements by Trump have been used in attempts to prove him guilty of fomenting insurrection, especially his J6 call to "fight like hell" and a previous statement directed at the Proud Boys to "stand down and stand by". With the Proud Boys convictions in place, the so-called Justice Department now has a basis to build a case that Donald Trump was guilty of an attempt to overthrow the government by calling on his supporters to disrupt the proceedings of January 6.
Strategies and tactics: We are now only a little over a year away from the 2024 election, and campaigns are ramping up accordingly. The GOP convention is in July, just a couple of months away, where a Republican candidate for President will be selected. As of now, Donald Trump seems by far to be the favored candidate.
Given that the opposition strategy is to prevent Donald Trump from ever holding the office of President again, how might the precedents be used to effect that strategy?
In terms of the nomination of candidates, one approach would be to cast doubt on the viability of Trump as a candidate. If Trump were to be indicted of sedition and convicted, he would be unable to be elected, and the GOP would be faced with having to produce a viable candidate at short notice. Rumors about the possible indictment of Trump just before the convention could be sufficient to sway the GOP to endorse a different candidate. That could force Trump to run as a third party candidate which would likely split the Republican vote, making a Democrat win much more likely.
Alternatively, the DoJ could wait until after Trump was selected as the candidate and was actively campaigning for President. An indictment early in 2024 would be highly disruptive to his campaign, but would complement the disruption possible under the New York suit presently active. An indictment would allow for hearing dates to be set at such time as the Trump campaign schedule was established. In either or both cases, hearings could be set on dates when Trump had rallies scheduled. If Trump were forced to attend hearings, he would have to cancel rallies which would have a detrimental effect on his campaign. Likewise, were he to ignore the summons and conduct his rallies, he could be held in contempt of court which could lead to his arrest and detainment.
If he were indicted by the DoJ, they could even go so far as pre-trial detention, a power that has been used against nearly all the J6 defendants. It would be extremely difficult for Trump to conduct any sort of effective campaign from within jail. Detention would also raise the possibility of an Epstein event, although that could be the final straw for many in the country who question the legitimacy of the current government.
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To an extent, the actions of the DoJ will depend on the result of appeals filed in the Proud Boys case. Should the convictions be overturned on appeal, it would be difficult for the DoJ to use those as a precedent on which to build a case against Trump. However, the DoJ can simply "slow walk" any appeals process to where there would be no appeals result prior to the 2024 election. Were that to happen, the convictions and their precedents would still stand and be useful for blocking Trump and the GOP.
What price freedom?: Most of us feel that the entire approach of the administration to the events of January 6 have been nothing more than contrived attempts by a corrupt cabal to remain in power. Donald Trump, being beholden to no-one and being loyal to the United States and to the Constitution represents a "loose cannon" and an existential threat to the power of the cabal. From their perspective it is absolutely essential that he never become President again, and that no action is too extreme to take to prevent his election. Their only restraint is the need to take care not to push things too far so as to provoke an effective response against their activities.
Undoubtedly, some members of this cabal see themselves as loyal patriotic Americans seeking to protect the nation from someone who aspires to become the autocratic ruler of the country - Kipling's "Man Who Would Be King", destroying our democracy and all the progress that has been made in the last century and more toward correcting the obsolescence and flaws of our Constitutional Republic.
They have our best interests at heart: Clearly, the cabal believes there is a need for enlightened, professional government, managed, of course, by themselves, to direct and control the citizens into fruitful pathways of peace and prosperity. Many seem enamored of the China system of social credit, and see the advantages of implementing the equivalent here. Trump, as an advocate of rule of law, of a Constitutional government, and of individual rights and liberties is seen as a throwback to the dark ages when individuals were unrestrained. Trump would return to a time when people would be able to do many things of which the elite would disapprove, like use fossil fuel, and have effective national borders, and many other unapproved things.
While many of us see the injustices of the J6 prosecutions, the attacks on Trump, the weaponization of government against the citizens, and so many other corruptions and perversions of our institutions, we are confronted with the question of what to do? The very institutions that are supposed to provide the checks and balances that protect us have become the sources of persecution and injustice. Rather than listen to the claims of unjust action and operate to rectify them, the DoJ has itself become the persecutor of those who make such claims. The fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, of self defense, and other basic guarantees of our Bill of Rights have been turned around so that anyone who asserts those rights is declared an enemy of the state.
These are indeed perilous times with the country poised on a knife edge between restoration of the Republic of our history, and a transformation to a totalitarian state similar to so many well-intentioned tyrannies of the past. Yes, there appears to be a seditious conspiracy in place, but I think the wrong parties have been identified. We need to continue and expand our efforts to expose the real conspirators and remove them from the positions of power they have usurped. The struggle is epic, the risks heroic, the rewards beyond measure.
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David Robb is a practicing scientist and CTO of a small firm developing new security technologies for detection of drugs and other contraband. Dave has published extensively in TheBlueStateConservative, and occasionally in American Thinker.