Tell your Senators and President Biden: We Voted to Restore the Rule of Law, Too!
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Call Script
My name is __________. I am a constituent, and my zip code is _______. I am a member of Indivisible SF.
To Senator Feinstein: We are alarmed that the Senate is continuing its business as usual in the Capitol building, forcing some Senators to work side by side with colleagues who are actively minimizing the gravity of the January 6 attack or, worse, potentially complicit in it. We urge you to push Senator Schumer to take a vote to expel from Congress those who violated their oaths of office by colluding with, aiding, or abetting the insurrection. Every Senator should have to go on record with a public vote that shows how seriously they take their oath of office.
To Senator Padilla: We are alarmed that the Senate is continuing its business as usual in the Capitol building, forcing some Senators to work side by side with colleagues who are actively minimizing the gravity of the January 6 attack or, worse, potentially complicit in it. We urge you to push Senator Schumer to take a vote to expel those who violated their oaths of office by colluding with, aiding or abetting the insurrection from Congress. Every Senator should have to go on record with a public vote that shows how seriously they take their oath of office.
To President Biden: After four years of criminality, corruption and denied justice, we voted for you to hold the criminals accountable and restore the rule of law. We expected a Biden Attorney General to investigate wrongdoing, root out unethical and illegal behavior wherever it occurred, and restore the Justice Department’s reputation by prosecuting those criminals. Merrick Garland has been far too cautious, and his timid approach threatens the survival of your presidency. If the DOJ does not prosecute and punish criminal acts, it effectively condones and sanctions them, which encourages future attempts. If Garland isn’t willing to act more aggressively to protect the rule of law, you should ask him to step aside.
We also want you to demonstrate your commitment to eliminating corruption in our government by replacing USPS Board member Ron Bloom and firing Board chairman Louis DeJoy for his glaring conflicts of interest and abysmal performance. We will all cheer.
Background
We were told that some Biden voters just didn’t feel motivated to get out and vote for Democratic governors last Tuesday because “Democrats can’t get anything done,” in spite of President Biden’s remarkable American Rescue Plan that reduced childhood poverty by nearly 50% and gave every one of them direct relief during the worst of the pandemic.
While our media may be blaming the Democratic factions fighting over passage of the BIF and BBBA, there's another elephant in the room: those debates are taking place on the site of a white supremacist terrorist attack. On January 6, 2021, violent terrorists waving Confederate flags went on the rampage in our Capitol, yet Congress has continued with business as usual. Doing so was valiant on the afternoon of the attack, as our Speaker and Majority Leader held Congress together to certify the election. But that was eight months ago – and today, members of Congress who violated their oaths of office on that day remain proudly defiant and continue parroting the lies and hate that inspired the terrorists.
As great reporting reveals more and more alarming details about how much the events of January 6 resembled a coup attempt, all we have seen so far from the Department of Justice are light sentences for MAGA foot soldiers. The January 6 Select Committee issues subpoenas, but most of its meetings with witnesses are taking place behind closed doors, and it has only made one criminal referral to the DOJ, which is still reviewing the referral after two weeks. We need public hearings to further reinforce awareness of the lengths to which Republicans were willing to go to overturn the election results in the name of white nationalism.
Because in 1995 Merrick Garland successfully prosecuted the white supremacist who killed 165 people in the Oklahoma City bombing, having him as Attorney General on January 6 may have seemed like poetic justice. But since then, he has tried so hard to avoid the appearance of political motivation that the DOJ is failing to meet the moment with the urgency it deserves. In the wake of a violent politically motivated crime, he should be pressing for indictments, not issuing weak statements in response to desperate pleas for justice. When asked when Bannon would be indicted, for example, he reportedly replied: "This is a criminal matter. We evaluate these in the normal way we do facts in the law, by applying the principles of prosecution." But when he took office, he already had the Mueller Report’s documentation of felony obstruction of justice by the former president, and yet he hasn’t issued any indictments. Meanwhile, the seditionists and their funders, eager for an authoritarian white supremacist government, continue to promote their ideas and attempts to undermine President Biden’s success.
The primary purpose of prosecution and punishment is not to get political revenge or retribution, but to deter future crimes. The more the DOJ delays prosecution for politically motivated crimes or opts not to prosecute them at all, the more encouraged seditionists will be to commit them again – potentially with more dire results. That’s why we want President Biden to replace AG Garland, and why we urge the January 6 Committee to get tougher and issue more criminal referrals.
References
Garland refuses to comment on status of Bannon’s contempt referral: ‘This is a criminal matter’, 11/8/21, Raw Story
Notes on an Authoritarian Conspiracy: Inside the Claremont Institute's “79 Days to Inauguration” Report, 11/8/21, The Bulwark
https://america.substack.com/p/where-oh-where-is-merrick-garland?, 11/8/21, Stephen Beschloss
Opinion | Merrick Garland is the wrong man for the job, 5/23/21, Washington Post
House hopes to defy history in criminal contempt case against Bannon 10/19/21, Politico
Analysis: Steve Bannon's popular podcast is a 'dangerous' fantasyland of election lies, 11/7/21, CNN
To Ditch DeJoy, Biden Must Replace Ron Bloom | Revolving Door Project, 8/15/21
Trump Admits Starving USPS to Sabotage Voting By Mail, 8/13/2020, NY Magazine
“Red Mirage”: the Insidious Scenario if Trump Declares an Early Victory, France 24 News, 10/31/2020
Trump And His Allies Have Lost Nearly 60 Election Fights In Court (And Counting), Buzzfeed News, 12/14/2020
5 US Code § 3331 - Oath of office | US Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
More Than Two Dozen Members of Congress Have Been Indicted Since 1980 , 7/29/2015, Washington Post
Lawmakers Who Conspired with Capitol Attackers in Legal Peril, 1/14/21, Politico
What Do—and Will—the Criminal Prosecutions of the Jan. 6 Capitol Rioters Tell Us?, 11/4/21, Lawfare Blog
Rep. Zoe Lofgren Social Report reviewing social media posts from Congressional leaders nationwide about the insurrection (State-by-State compilation)
Police Looking Into Whether MOC Gave Rioters Tour of Capitol
Follow The Money Behind The Capitol Riot, 1/25/21, The Brennan Center
Watergate at 25: Reforms, 6/13/97, Washington Post
40 Years Ago, Church Committee Investigated Americans Spying on Americans, 5/06/15, Brookings Institution