What I want the Jan. 6 committee to accomplish
Plus: My first book excerpt & an event I'm doing in Texas this September
Hi there! I put a poll in my last note asking what you’d like to see here once Untrustworthy is out, and “original writing from me” won like a 10-term Republican in Kentucky. So though I do have some book news to share—a pre-announcement of an event I’m doing in Texas in September and the first published excerpt (!)—before that: Here’s what I want the Jan. 6 committee to achieve.
For the happily unaware, this is a congressional committee investigating what happened during the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by supporters of former President Donald Trump who believed … well, undoubtedly a mix of things, as the variance in attire and gear might suggest, but the main reported motive was an attempt to stop the certification of an ostensibly fraudulent election result.
Like many, I’ve been skeptical about the hearings’ capacity to reveal new information and/or shift public opinion on Trump or the riot, and so far polling suggests my skepticism is warranted on the latter point. Some revelations have been legitimately novel, however, and there’s another round of hearings starting today.
What I hope they’ll accomplish is simple: set a precedent of prosecuting presidents.
It’s not that I’m 100 percent confident Trump is legally (as opposed to morally) culpable for the chaos of that day, though I do find the case for fraud fairly convincing (especially in Georgia, as discussed below). But what I’m really interested in here is much bigger than Trump or indeed any one president. I want a new norm which says presidents have to do their jobs, like everyone else, with the knowledge that they can be prosecuted if they commit a crime.
This is particularly true now, with culture war battles at a new vertex and fear for the basic integrity of our system of government run rampant. We need more rule of law—which is not the same as more laws, of course—to settle things down. Nothing exacerbates fears about authoritarianism like letting the most powerful law-enforcement officer on the planet operate above the law!
I made basically this same case in 2019, when the special counsel investigation into Trump ended in a noncommittal whimper:
[Making it possible for sitting presidents to be indicted] is not as radical as it might sound. (Some legal experts believe it's perfectly possible already, but the Justice Department disagrees.) You don't have to go full French Revolution, ready to lop off the head of state, to make the occupant of the nation's highest office answerable to the nation's criminal code—or at least more easily subject to legal consequences.
A frequent objection to this proposal is that subjecting presidents to the law would unduly constrain them, especially in matters of national security: If the president can’t do war crimes in a state of total unconcern about his own legal future, how can we be safe? To this I would respond, as I explained in the 2019 piece, that other countries already allow their leaders to be tried, and it’s fine. The case of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose criminal trial is ongoing, is an interesting and relevant example.
That said, a federal prosecution—if the attorney general brought charges against Trump based on the Jan. 6 committee hearings—is likely not the best option here. In the long run, I think opening the door to prosecuting current and former presidents would constrain presidential behavior and thereby calm political passions. In the short-term, however, it would set partisan lizard brains on fire, and the most intense version of that scenario is Attorney General Merrick Garland, who isn’t seated on the Supreme Court because of a chain of events involving Trump’s 2016 election, putting Trump in prison. “Abstain from all appearance of evil” (1 Thess. 5:22).
This is a big reason why a state-level prosecution strikes me as the preferable approach. (It’s also pragmatically better, because the case could extend past a GOP presidential win in 2024, at which point a federal prosecution would presumably be dropped.) Georgia seems like the best bet to me, especially after reading this Vox interview with Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Tamar Hallerman, who broke the story of an Atlanta-area grand jury subpoenaing Trump allies. An excerpt:
Vox’s Ben Jacobs: How is this different than the January 6 committee?
Tamar Hallerman: This is a criminal investigation looking at state laws that might have been broken. [Fulton County District Attorney Fani] Willis can press charges, and the committee can only make referrals to the Department of Justice. Further, the laws are different at the federal level and state level. Georgia has a law that prohibits criminal solicitation to commit election fraud; a lot of lawyers I’ve talked to believe it fits perfectly with a lot of stuff Trump said during his phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021.
(The call Hallerman references is the one in which Trump urged Georgia election officials to conveniently “find 11,780 votes” for him so he could win the state. You can read the full transcript here.)
The district attorney, Willis, is a Democrat, so if this investigation leads to a trial, it will still be seen through a partisan lens—in fact, as Hallerman explains later in the conversation, it’s already been subject to those accusations. Nevertheless, prosecution in Georgia, a swing state (albeit more a dollop of blue in an expanse of red than an even purple), is at least a little less fraught than a federal case and therefore better suited to starting a practice of prosecuting presidents without also starting another civil war.
Book news
The event in Texas
I was hoping to share a formal announcement, including a registration form, for this event in Texas, but it’s not quite ready yet.
Still, the gist for any who would like to plan to attend:
Speakers: David French, Jeff Bilbro, yours truly
Topics: Basically stuff from Untrustworthy—media, community, trust, partisanship, internet brain worms, etc.
Where: Amarillo, Texas, hosted by a local church
When: Thursday, September 1, something like 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., possibly with an additional evening gathering
Who: As that tweet says, it’s geared toward pastors, but you don’t have to be a pastor to attend
I should be able to pass along the actual announcement and registration soon, but I figured I’d share the essentials now for anyone who needs more planning time.
A book excerpt & other recent articles
As promised, at the top of the list is the first published excerpt from Untrustworthy, which appeared in Christianity Today’s latest print issue.
Can we resurrect expertise? | Christianity Today
Joe Biden can’t fix what’s broken about us. No president can. | The Daily Beast
The troubling meaning of the ‘we will adopt your baby’ meme wars | Reason
My Substack recs
I assume you are no doubt satisfied reading me and only me:
But if, for some reason, you’re looking for a larger supply of thoughtful political, theological, and tech commentary, I recently started using Substack’s new feature which lets me list other newsletters I find worthwhile and send readers their way. Check out my list here and subscribe to a few. You’ll see some of my former colleagues from The Week as well as more recent discoveries.
Best,
Bonnie
start with war crimes. All the presidents since Clinton droned civilians. Obama droned US citizens. On the way out of Afghanistan we droned an innocent family. Oopsie ? and no one even lost their jobs let alone got prosecuted?
Then you'll have a basis for something other than selective enforcement and impeachments. Once you've done that, expand to inciting riots and other domestic noise.
PS - I think Trump is a moron, and am embarrassed I voted for Obama 2x, thinking he'd change a few things. I'm decidedly anti being on team red or blue